The storms have past, and it’s a warm day here in Houston. The innocent white cotton ball like clouds randomly drift under the protection of a pure blue sky allowing yellow sunlight to blink down at me.
It is at these quiet moments without the interruption from life, or a television, or a radio, or Youtube or whatever other noise making modern device that distracts me, that I listen to that inner whisper.
My life sometimes feels like I’m on a high-speed train blurring past reality. But then the train stops, I investigate the past and then I get back on the train curious when it will stop again.
I don’t live in the past, I live in the present, wondering about the future. I have zero control over the future. But I can still wonder, and be hopeful, right?
I am quite aware that I’m approaching 51 trips around the sun, and that for the most part, I’ve been quite fortunate. Sure, I can complain about certain scars that I hold from my youth, or if someone cut me off in traffic, but what’s the point?
I like to use an old Polish saying, “not my circus, not my monkeys”. In other words, I let the negative influences leave my orbit, and I replace them with the happy bright stars that I allow into my universe.
If you think about it, it’s really easy to be negative, you actually have to decide to be happy.
Simply stated, I am thankful to be alive.
I am thankful I breathe fresh air within the earned freedom of these United States.
I can write and publish what ever I choose. I can share my thoughts without the fear of retribution from a tyrannical government.
And ‘the we’ within this country can agree to disagree, but we can still break bread and toast each other for our differences. I love those differences, because they make life interesting. And I learn a thing or two from those that view the world through different eyes.
When I was a boy, I wondered what it would feel like to have gray hair. I have learned it feels the same, but I have also learned how to make the gray temporarily disappear. Eventually, I’ll accept reality, and I’ll look in the mirror at my head full of gray hair, but I’m genetically lucky, at least I’ll have a head full of hair.
After a brief health scare, with an unpleasant CT scan, for the most part, I’m in good health. I can still run a sub 7 minute mile, that is, if I choose to push my body and mind. I choose to work-out, hard, because it feels good. And I’m lucky that my body allows me to compete with me. I know there are others bigger, stronger and much faster than me. I also know there are others that their body does not allow them to work-out, so I have zero excuses.
Some day, my body will not allow me to run, my fingers might not allow me to type, and my mind might fade into dusk. The future will eventually arrive at my doorstep, and then others will talk of me in the past tense. That’s life.
In the meantime, I’ll get back on that empty train for one, I’ll grip the cold metal pole, and I’ll watch through the windows at the outside world as reality begins to blur again.
I’ll appreciate my flawed journey and I’ll wonder about the next stop.
Today, at this stop, I am thankful.
NS
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