Narcissus on Holiday
Just returned from a brief holiday with my parents, kid sister and her boy friend. Won’t lie – time on the lake made me a bit sentimental. It’s not often that sentiment is a quantum emotion – fragmented memories all linked to your current place, yet each sentiment discreet, and vastly different. My thoughts ranged from catching a bluegill by the eye as a boy while visiting Oklahoma , to family trips to Lake Cumberland during my teens, to a trip last summer to Dale Hollow.
Life was very different a a year ago (or “then” if you’re catching references).
Boating with the family is a good time, every time. But I definitely had a bout of introspection that led me to this fact: it’s been a crazy year. I certainly wouldn’t have expected my life have taken the turns it has during the last few months. In the broad spectrum of my life, it wouldn’t stand out as remarkable – I haven’t had any hole drilled into my head. I haven’t purchased a home, and I haven’t left the country for a month or more. But I am keenly aware of mistakes that have been made – mistakes that can’t be undone, and that perhaps shouldn’t be undone. I’m aware of choices that I’ve made that may effect my life as much as the aforementioned drill hole.
All in all, life is going well. I start a new job (which I think will be fantastic) on Monday, I’m running a race tomorrow, and the house is coming along. Hell, even the book I’m reading (Hocus Pocus, by Kurt Vonnegut) is quality. Perhaps that is why I’m susceptible to nostalgia – to reflection. Life’s successes are very much like mile 10 on a long run – you get hypoxic enough to believe than everything is good, and the next 5 miles aren’t much of a task. You reflect back on the past ten miles, and think of them fondly, as if they weren’t much work at all. But when you were on mile 7, you thought you might die.
When I first wrote this, I felt like I might be in mile 10, pushing forward to easier times ahead. At the moment, it looks more like mile 7. And I may have left something very important back at mile 5. I have the sneaking suspicion that Orwell would have been disgusted by my expended metaphor, but it’s what comes to me at the moment. And he’s dead, so I’m not likely to receive a reprimand.
Now you might accuse me of being vague – I’m guilty, and it was certainly intentional. The details aren’t important. What is important is notion of reflection. And taking time to do it – to feel the water on my face and remember the times spent away from the world. I relinquished control (or the illusion of control, if you like) for a few hours and took the time to think about what has past since I last laid out on a boat floating across a lake. I took inventory of the mistakes I have made – one standing out in particular – and felt the sun on my skin. The sun said that I’d never correct those mistakes, but that life would likely be alright, and that I would be able to lay out at take a nap in the heat of day again regardless of the troubles at hand.
Of course, I haven’t completely given up on rectifying the mistakes of the last year. It’s in my nature. But I have come to grips with the beauty of spending a weekend on the lake with Mom, Dad, Kelly and Joe, rather than dwelling on sentiment. That’s the lesson of reflection – it’s fleeting, so you best enjoy what’s really in front of you, lest you be Narcissus.
-w