07.17.06

Nearing Forty Years

Posted in Personal at 11:30 am by Moody

Life will not be what you expect. That’s what I’ve learned. Two days before my 40th birthday and I realize that I am not anywhere near who I thought I’d be or where I’d expected to be. Re-reading old entries here (old by date, not by quantity), I already feel the distance. My life has already moved on, moved forward. Memories have become more nuanced with new experiences or have been deepened by similar experiences.

Sometimes of late, I’m really just not sure what’s going on with me. Somehow, I thought 40 would not be a big deal. I already felt so old for any number of reasons. At 35, I thought that five more years would not make much of a difference. But after my second divorce, after finding and settling into a new and totally different relationship, after getting the job I’ve now held for a year, after seeing financial disaster descend despite my best efforts, I came to see that five years is a hell of a long time in terms of the potential for significant events.

Strange to think that, when I was a teen and twenty-something, I thought I’d be dead by now. So many times I wished I was; I was nearly always unhappy. I lived my life fast and loose and didn’t really care what happened. It all seemed bad at its root. But Kisha nailed it when she said that I am, at heart and despite myself, an optimist of the most romantic variety. And that fact says this about me: I really do believe, in my inmost self, that life is good. And I do. I admit it. I can’t help it. Nature vs. Nurture…. When it comes to me and my sense of what’s good? I don’t know which way to rule on that, so I’ll just say it’s probably a combination of the two and consider that good enough.

But life is not what you expect. Life is just life. The events that transpire are, to large extent, beyond your control, and what is apparently in your control does not always wind up in the way you intended. The signposts aren’t always accurate, the paths wash out in unexpected deluges or the way is blocked by a raging fire or avalanche, you twist an ankle or your shoes wear out, etc. The adventure really does begin one step beyond your front door, one step beyond yourself. And who you believe you are is, more or less, prone to morph with its dynamics. I am not who I was a mere five years ago. I don’t know who I’ll be in another five.

But I do know this: I am changing, and in changing I overcome whoever it is I am now. We have to overcome ourselves, because if we don’t — we risk decay, we risk going stale, we risk a kind of frigidity akin to rigor mortis, we risk a fatal limitation.

The concept of overcoming oneself is where Buddhism meets Nietzsche. It should come as no surprise that I relate well to both. That, for me, is a constant. I sincerely believe that the whole idea of the “self” is loaded with pitfalls and dangers. For one thing, nobody can agree on what ultimately constitutes the “self” beyond the most basic fundamentals, which in themselves don’t add up to much — they don’t say anything deeply meaningful. My name, gender, place of residence — all the usual facts and factoids — can say only so much, even in combination. What I’ve written of “myself” says only what it says. My taste in music, food, literature, clothing — what does that taste mean, really, when these exact things mean something else to someone else? Psychological analysis yields only another form of information, which itself must then be consciously translated into something meaningful by the analysand. And this leads to the observation that an unknown portion of the so-called “self” exists in the unconscious, and we don’t know what’s there save by inference that may or may not be accurate or “real”.

In the end, I discover who I am by overcoming myself, by reviewing my history and determining the differences between my “self” then and my “self” now. And so it is I can say that I’ve noted an apparent uptick or jump in this or that quality, quantity or manifestation of this or that interest, this or that aversion, this or that neutrality. I like different bands, I read new authors, I live somewhere else, my love finds new love. But isn’t it all a tad academic? What does it really mean, any of it? Can I share it with you? Do you know me?

So, turning 40 is a big deal to me. In a very little time, really, I’ll likely be in Arizona, visiting my parents who are likely not going to see New Year’s Eve, 2007. My family is scattered all over the place, though some are relatively close by, and my sense of them only grows more tenuous with the passage of the years. From my parents, the progenitors, to me, their last offspring, my family arose. Will it fall the same way? Will I be the last? Am I my family’s omega? No. There are the children. Specifically, there is my daughter. She’ll go on, barring tragedy, after I’m gone. And if I am to say something perhaps a little odd here, then let it be that in her continuance my “self” will be finally, completely overcome, even as it goes on in her genes, in her memory. Aufheben: to lift up, to cancel, to preserve.

These are a few of my considerations just two days before my 40th birthday, even as I sit here drinking my cup of sweet, sweet Yuban (”Rainforest Alliance Certified“) coffee with organic milk from grass-fed free range cows (maintained by a small, independent dairy). Even as the complex issues revolving around and springing from Palestine, Israel, Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Afghanistan, Syria, China, and Russia, whirl like a massive cyclone around the world. Even as the specter of global warming grows more menacing. Even as Americans struggle to comprehend their own nation, its policies, its behavior, its addictions, its mentally unstable state of mind. Even as, sitting five feet away from me, the woman I love more than I could ever adequately describe struggles to deal with a history rife with abuse and unending pain. Even as my parents are dying. Even as the turtle is swimming around, hoping for more food. Even as my daughter spends her day beneath a faraway sky. Even as Kisha’s son, our boy, learns to deal with his father — a man who will never be as much a dad to him as I will be. Even as we all try to figure out where we’re going, what we’re doing, and hang on to the reasons we have to be, knowing we don’t have to be, that nothing requires us, really, that, like all dreams, it can all end, that we will end, someday, somehow, sooner or later. Even as Amiina’s haunting and lovely “Bláskjár” plays in intimate origami music-box folds through my mind. Even as I light this cigarette and wonder for the millionth time, “Will I get cancer?”

So many mistakes and triumphs, so many failed and successful relationships, so many missed opportunities and lucky breaks. They’ve all led to now, and who I am now is the product of them all, for better or for worse. Thus goes the story of the universe itself, of all that has ever happened; it all adds up to this, the same for me as for you. It couldn’t be a moment different and be the same.

And I love that it’s so. I love this life. I love my life, and, yes, I am an optimist. Whatever is happening now that terrifies or horrifies me is — it’s okay. I mean, it’s not “okay”, but, really, it’s all just a part of something for which it can only ever be half the equation. There is all the opportunity in the world for anything else to happen, and even if we don’t make it, if I don’t make it, still there will remain so much more. There’s endless room for that. That’s what near forty years of life have taught me. The possibilities are amazing.

I wonder what will happen now. Who shall I become?

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