"They" warned me. Not necessarily directly, but through those pointed leading questions, hoping your answer will show your ignorance so that they can expound their in-the-know experience, or friends' experience, or distant-relations' experience, in gory detail to educate you on the matter.
I half-listened while nodding and making appropriate sympathetic faces to the sad plights of these many folks, while my harsh inside voice thought dammit people, just pull up your socks and get on with it!
And then it hit me. This past weekend, I was sad. For some inexplicable reason, I could not get over the fact that life was "absurd and meaningless", as Alan Alda so eloquently observed. I saw this "absurdity" in every direction I looked, felt this "absurdity" in each task I thought about undertaking. I panicked when I realized that the rest of my life was actually just an endless stretch of sad, absurd, lonely, grey-cast days.
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| Another grey cloudy rainy dark day |
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| Cerise Creek, off the Duffy Lake road |
It was one thing to Talk about skiing the next day, while sitting in the rain-pelted car, driving through the grey, but to actually Think about getting everything together, and then to actually Get everything together... draining. My harsh inside voice spoke - at least I can exercise my muscles, oxygenate my blood, and try to keep pain and carcass degradation out of the future of my life of absurdity.
The rain continued to pour down the next day, and driving north through the dawn barely changed the dark blue-grey night hues into cloud-engulfed foggy medium-grey. Again. For the umpteenth day in a row.
But then something happened. As we silently skied through the forest, I stopped and looked up - and it wasn't raindrops hitting my eyes, but gently falling snowflakes.
Later, up on the spine of a high moraine, was less gentle - the winds raged and the icy snow granules repeated pricked what bit of exposed skin I had left (my nose, and a bit of cheek). But it was invigorating.
I pulled up my ski socks, and my inside voice silently cracked a wee smile.
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| Trees |
I had a similar "life is absurd" moment when i saw that gramma's house had been torn down and a new one in its place. Suddenly, just like that, the visible traces of her were gone. How fleeting ones existence is! I find if you are less of a "everything happens for a reason", and more of a "that's just the way it is", it is all easier to tolerate.
ReplyDeleteWe're here for a good time, not a long time... So have a good time, 'cause the sun don't shine every day.
DeleteAlso, why judge the "sad plight" of others? It is their experience that they feel the need to talk about. Listen, then leave it alone.
ReplyDeleteYes, hidden in the irony that I had to write about my sad plight, tail between my legs, to the whole world on internet.
DeleteIf that did not come across in the post, then shame on the writer for failing to express.
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