Friday, July 16, 2021

Stages

Sometimes the jobs I've had have taken me to "big cities." Most of them I didn't care for. A few of them I liked. In particular, I enjoyed visiting Los Angeles, especially the coastal parts of LA like Santa Monica and Venice Beach and Redondo Beach. I enjoyed driving along the coast highway and visiting the old Spanish missions. But LA has changed a lot since those days, and I have a feeling that the door has closed on those kinds of adventures. I don't think I would enjoy them now. I think they would bring more trouble than pleasure.

But life comes in stages. The things you love now, you may find boring later in your life. So if you enjoy something now, then take it all in—enjoy it as much as you can. 

When we're young, we think we are going to live forever. We know better, but that's the way we feel. We see old people and can't imagine that once they were children; no, they've always been old. That's how I saw my grandparents when I was a youngster. They had always been old; they were born old and were never kids that grew up and witnessed the passage of years. Oh no, that was unimaginable. My grandfather had always worn a suit and tie with a vest and a brown fedora. He had never been a baby; he had never been young; he had always looked just as he looked to me at that time of my life. 

Each stage of my life seemed like it would last forever. I would always be a teenager; I would always be a twenty-something; I would always be a thirty-something. Sometimes I was foolish, but I didn't know I was foolish until years had passed. Intellectually, I knew that I would grow to a point that I might consider my "peak years" and then I would go downhill toward a different kind of childhood when once again I might need help and support from adults around me. That end was far away and out of my mind, but I knew it was waiting for me, as it waits for all of us.

I'm not at the end yet, but I'm close enough that I have no fear of it. I can see into its eyes, and I don't see the eyes of a tiger, but the eyes of a granddaughter I never had, the eyes of an angel that stood beside me when I was foolish. There were times I counted myself lucky when, instead, I should have thanked that angel.

I'll soon take a step into another stage of life. It feels familiar and it feels unfamiliar. I don't know when and where it will end. All I know is that life—existence—arrives in stages. Birth was not the first stage and death will not be the final stage. What came before is a mystery, and what comes after is a mystery. But I accept it. Acceptance brings peace. 

I wrote in a previous blog post that all my life I've felt like a train on a track, unable to change my destiny—my destination—by the smallest degree. I feel a wisdom greater than my own is in charge of my destiny. I don't know about that, it's just what I feel. Especially at night when I sit alone in the dark and think about my life and where I've been and where I might yet be. 

Stages. Is it just me, or does anyone else sometimes sit alone in the darkness and think back on the stages of their life and wonder what the next stage may bring? I think only those spirits who have seen many stages, many lifetimes, think such thoughts. As a wise woman once told me, "young spirits are too busy trying to get themselves out of jail." Life is a long journey: you get to be young and old and everything in between. And, just maybe, you get to do it over and over until you do it right.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

“ You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.” — Mae West.
All our lives come in stages and that is why we learn but if your life has been like "I've felt like a train on a track unable to change my destiny", allow me to tell you Mr. VW that your life has changed already because destiny is going to make you happy being in this stage of your life. You have mentioned before many times in your previous blogs that you met somebody from another country and when you did that, I inmediately thought that you had a motivation to live for and "Is it just me, or does anyone else sometimes sit alone in the darkness and think back on the stages of their life and wonder what the next stage may bring? No, Mr. VW you are not alone anymore and you are not in darkness. Appreciate what your angel has given to you and enjoy it. Life is short and you just need to see what is next to you and don't be afraid.
Good luck and be happy!
TA

Anonymous said...

Greetings
I think it's a good thing to reflect and review the stages of your life. It's easy for others to sit back and say "if that person stays on that path -- they are headed for a very unhappy train wreck". I really believe to a certain degree we can control our daily happiness or sadness. More than reflect on where I am in my life -I find I'm always searching for ways to make changes or improve those things I do not like.

Like you said some people always felt old and never had a past --- I wonder if that's what we seem like to the youngsters nowadays.

I believe to some degree we must make a path and if it's not acceptable --get off that path and find a new one.

Great blog for some deep thinking.

Best
LL