Wake Me Up When September Ends: Wishing Your Life Away

Sunset rays on a Lemurian crystal; photo copyrighted by Lorna Tedder

It’s been a long time since I’ve met anyone I was romantically interested in who could sustain multiple Life-Death-and-the-Universe discussions but let’s just say that this particular man is like sweet tea made with real sugar on a hot South Georgia dog day:  a little old-fashioned, very sweet, and totally refreshing.  I very much appreciate men who are my intellectual match and are non-judgmental, both for who they are and for the incredible epiphanies they bring to me.

This September has been particularly crazy with the Fiscal Yearend and slashing through as many projects in a single day as I usually do in an entire month…and I’m no slacker over the course of a month, either.  It’s a mental and physical strain and I almost find myself wishing that September were over and done with so I can get some rest.  It’s also been a difficult week for me emotionally–not that I’ve told him this–because I’ve been forced to work through some old issues and he doesn’t let me get away with changing the subject or not answering.  I’ve had to search my feelings on several past issues just to answer in an intelligent way and unwittingly he’s helped me slot some old experiences and why certain relationships failed…and why I’m glad now that they failed.

In short, Sweet Tea makes me think, and that’s something most men don’t do for me.  Two discusssions brought me to these conclusions:

1. We spend so much of our lives planning for a distant future.  If we’re not happy where we are now, instead of fixing it, we dream about the day…maybe years from now…when life is finally better. By wishing to be in the future, we wish our present away.  We wish our lives away.  Yet, wherever we stand, we look back at what we consider wasted time and we regret that we wasted it.  That wasted time in the past–when we could have been having fun or doing more enjoyable work or in a better relationship–is the same as the present we wish away.
2. I’m at a place in my life where I don’t wish for some magical, golden future when everything is oh-so-perfect and focus on that future while the present is gods-awful bad.  As I explained to Sweet Tea, it’s like that glowing ball of happiness in the future that other people run to is something that’s inside me right now and as I move forward into the future, I take it there with me.  There’s no big something in the future that will make it all better–just me in the present, at one with my joy, moving gleefully into the future with it rather than chasing it.

Wishing away your life?  Bad!  Men who make me think?  Good!