4043 : When the tenses mix up

As I said earlier, I have been writing a series of essays on love. The reason I have been writing this is, is more as a personal tool of finding myself than anything else. I am not doing this as a theory, I am doing this as a personal dive in. One of the things that I often ponder upon is how things break or break down.

I have a detailed personal journey of how the anatomy of a break down might be playing out. Thats not for today. Thats a long essay and a heavy read. 

What I would say today though is this.....

Sometimes the past begins to occupy an inordiantely large part of your heart. Be it an older/existing romantic love. Or be it, some phenomenal work experience, that you had, but no longer have. Its easy to hold onto what was. Like the tiger cub, once its has tasted blood, they believe they can have blood every meal. It takes courage to recognize, that today's meal might just be carcasses and not, blood and beans. 

I say it takes courage, not because we should discard our older highs, or older wins, or older friends, or older memories......instead, because it takes equanmity to admit, that the future might be nothing like the past. My current job might be a shade of what it was 10 years ago. It takes immense awareness to admit, I have changed, I am now part of the problem too,  I no longer have the skills or energy and hence..... the milk has possibly curdled.

The 2nd order effect of this is, you cannot be your best in the future, if you live in the past. Which means its hard to be great at your new job (which could be the same firm, but a new role!!), unless you decide to break free. Mentally. Physically, both. 

Unless you can admit that you carry baggage, you carry grief for what you have lost.....you cannot win in the future. 
"What could be, or what was...." both of these emotions pull us back from experiencing our present. Both of these emotions act as bellwether for something that might never happen in your present. Your present could be a shadow of your past.

We all have to accept that sometimes beautiful and happy things end. They dont necessarily end well. They end in a mess. They taste like puree. Thats because we let them run too long. One analogy..... if you let any person die of old age, the death is messy and hard to see. Get the drift? Its so hard to see your parents deteriorate. Its so hard to see yourself grow old. Why? Becaue you are letting the journey run its course and the journey is so hard to see and experience, especially if you also know what "the past" looked like. 

Hence sometimes walking away, or putting distance,  lets us freeze time. Hope is....everyone can come back on a later date, and while we might still be older and infirm then....at least we have not seen the slow excrutiating process of it. And that burden avoided, is a huge saving grace on us.

Two active parties (job, romance, love, parents, children......all of them!!) can sometimes run dry. And its important to recognize that odds state that any such partnership will run amok. While a lot of us see the breaks, we never act upon them. In my own past, I distinctly remember seeing one of my work roles, decompose to tatters in months......and I stood there like a frog in boiling water. Unable to see the decay, and almost frozen to death.

Two sides can beat the odds, but it is very rare. Almost not how this world of constant renewal is meant to be. 

Finally, its important to break out and re-examine our lives. Only then does imagination return. Only then can you hope to smile and dance with a human again in 20 years. That journey/hope deserves a chance, that journey also deserves the deep recognition, that every life plays out in acts.
It could be the same actors in every act, it could also be different.....completely beside the point though....what matters is.....we enjoy the acts and celebrate our lived lives. All of us together are actors (Shakespeare got this so apt and correct!!). 

Fidelity, commitment, making it work -  are so over-rated. An anchor has a great value. But only if you are looking to stay ashore. If you ready again to travel the world, the anchor is our biggest ball around the neck. For both the boat and the traveller.

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