It's A Good Life

Have you ever just dug through a stack of stuff you used to cherish when you were younger, to relive the nostalgia that comes from remembering where you were at that point and time in your life? It happens to me sometimes, and it did with a fury last night.

I was sitting in bed, trying to get to sleep, and in my restless mood I got up and went to my cd collection and walkman. I don't listen to just one cd mind you, I have to select several and then just start searching for songs that I am in the mood for at that moment. This usually results in an armload of cd's carried into the bedroom and spread across the bed strategically to maximize the results. I had opted to listen to stuff I hadn't touched in years. In a few cd's cases, it had been several years. Knocking the dust off the cover and trying to plumb the depths of my memory to see if I can recall a song, a riff, a lyric before playing the music is some weird game I devised for myself.

I put in this cd by Spacehog, called "The Hogyssey," and for some reason last night, it was a catalyst into some memories that I had circa 2001, late April or early May. I was picturing my apartment there on Kinzer, 103 B, with the picture windows and slatted blinds. The brown carpeting. I remember when I first moved in, I had an empty waterbed frame sitting on the floor and I slept on a single bed in against the window of the bedroom. I remember my sister's cat, Maxwell, as being a good lap cat one day, and an ornery cat the next.

Things back then seemed to be looking very positive. I was dating a really smart and beautiful girl, who was my first real solid love.I was gaining experience in my job at the time and it seemed that I was really thinking I could attain it all. I would end up botching it months later on all fronts, but that's not what I was thinking about when I listened to that music last night. It was quiet moments laying in the dark with my girlfriend at the time, buying cookware in Sikeston. Strange and mundane memories unlocked and floating up into my conscious.

Today, I briefly went through my stash of cards, letters, love notes, etc that I have hidden here. For the first time in I don't know when, I wasn't upset at how things fared with the other woman, insert name here _______. I wasn't miserable on how my life hasn't worked out the way I wanted it to. Instead, for the first time in I don't know when, I was re-reading the stuff and filled with happiness. I am that guy for a reason, and in the contents of the buried letters and cards, I was that guy for the significant others in that time. Rather than be depressed about how my relationships never seem to work, or how I have the worst luck, or other such nonsense, I am happy that ultimately, this is a good life. I have my health, I have my family, and I have friends that haven't bailed on me like most do. I could be in a far worse situation with my station in life. I could be poor, destitute, drifting aimless from job to job. I could be an asshole of the nth degree.I could be dead. We move through this life and acquire knowledge to apply in future scenarios. Discerning between right and wrong, adjusting and calibrating our worldview, finding someone who loves you for just being you. These seem to travel with us in this life. I know that they are still open ended questions for me personally, and maybe, for you as well. The journey itself is one that we don't often think about with a clear conscious, unshackled by all the emotions we weigh it down with over the course of life.

I am not one to think that our lives are pre-determined through genetic disposition and environment. I think that things happen both good and bad to someone for a reason. And to quote Paul Thomas Anderson from Magnolia, "We may be through with the past, but, as the book says, sometimes the past isn't through with us."

So, to all the women who have dated me and to whom I loved, to those people who I have called friend over the course of life, thanks for being there. Thanks for your contribution, both positive or negative, great or minor over the course of my lifetime. Thanks to my family for the love and support to which I can never truly match.

It truly is a good life.