The rest of my life.
Not my whole life, mind you, just the rest of it.
Stacked up like crates on the edge of a pier, waiting for a container ship to sail off into the limitless ocean, each pastel painted box a time capsule. Here's me having first communion, there I am graduating from junior high, oh look, that's me pumping gas. Marriage? Divorce? It all seemed so sudden. Well, sudden, but spread out over a 35 year period. Life's funny that way. When I think about the stress I felt at having to do a book report in 5th grade, how I pounded my fist against the bland beige carpet in my grandparents house and cursed my teacher for giving me so much more work than my friend, Richard Wong, I sigh. Such pressure. So hard.
Each and every period in my life has passed, obviously. Each little crate got shipped away, never to return again. Even now, as I prepair for the next chapter, I have to resign myself to the fact that this, too, will go. No matter how much fun I have in Hong Kong, for instance, I will not stay. I will not stop the clock. That, too, will go.
And in its place, something better, one can hope.
That's the progression. Every day, better and better. It's not always easy to see, but looking back, it becomes clear, clear as the air over the Pacific ocean on a cloudless, windless day of summer. Life tends to change in increments, usually small ones. But sometimes...
That's where I'm going.
The rest of my life.
Not my whole life, mind you, just the rest of it.
Stacked up like crates on the edge of a pier, waiting for a container ship to sail off into the limitless ocean, each pastel painted box a time capsule. Here's me having first communion, there I am graduating from junior high, oh look, that's me pumping gas. Marriage? Divorce? It all seemed so sudden. Well, sudden, but spread out over a 35 year period. Life's funny that way. When I think about the stress I felt at having to do a book report in 5th grade, how I pounded my fist against the bland beige carpet in my grandparents house and cursed my teacher for giving me so much more work than my friend, Richard Wong, I sigh. Such pressure. So hard.
Each and every period in my life has passed, obviously. Each little crate got shipped away, never to return again. Even now, as I prepair for the next chapter, I have to resign myself to the fact that this, too, will go. No matter how much fun I have in Hong Kong, for instance, I will not stay. I will not stop the clock. That, too, will go.
And in its place, something better, one can hope.
That's the progression. Every day, better and better. It's not always easy to see, but looking back, it becomes clear, clear as the air over the Pacific ocean on a cloudless, windless day of summer. Life tends to change in increments, usually small ones. But sometimes...
That's where I'm going.
The rest of my life.