It’s my life, it’s now or never (I ain’t gonna live forever)
So I’m realizing more and more each day just how much time I spend talking, and how little time I spend doing. I’m quite good at talking about what I’m going to do with my life, or changes I’m going to make, or decisions I’ve come to…but I seem to have problems executing. Today my mind has been taken back to two people who were friends of mine who both passed about three years ago. They were both less than 20 years old. Both were taken in accidents and died in a matter of hours. They were my age. My age. Not even “legal” yet. Life is pretty dang short. My fingers get cramped typing that, and my tongue gets numb saying it, because it feels like such a cliche, but I can’t help it. It’s much too real, and much too true. Many of my friends are marrying and having babies…and I feel like “Well, here I am, doing the same old thing I was doing yesterday.” I feel like my growth has been stunted in a way. I realize that in a way, this post is very much about what the last one was about, but my mind has been overcome with this lately. It’s all I seem to think about. I’m reading a very interesting book entitled Cabin Pressure by Entertainment Weekly columnist Josh Wolk. The summer before Josh got married to his wife, he went back to the camp he attended and then counseled at through his formative years to volunteer one last time. Josh was 34 at the time. For him it was one last exploit as a “young” adult. To Josh, this chance to re-experience his younger days was a chance to go back, to relive the life he once had one last time before succumbing to the real world of mortgages, plumbing leaks, and dirty diapers. This book is really resonating with me, partially because I know the camp life; I’ve lived it and love it. Like Josh, I’m an extreme nostalgic. I can spend hours and hours reminiscing about who did what that one time at that place when the power went out and the batteries went out in our flashlights and so the ghost stories were EVEN SCARIER… So, like I said, Josh’s story is really resonating with me. However, while Josh needed to take a look back before taking the marriage leap…I feel like it’s time for me to look forward. I need to create new memories. New things to be ridiculously nostalgic and wistful about. I think the bottom line I’m getting at is, it’s time I got away from the complacent rut that I seem to burrow into time after time and my life, and actually DO something. MOVE. BE. DO.
I’m going to try starting that this week. I’ll let you know how it goes.