Life's Path

[Victor]

Does anyone find himself reflecting on his life and thinking, gee, it sure would have run more smoothly if I had just accepted what was offered at such and such a time, instead of running around trying to scare up new opportunities?

[Phillip Allen]

Must be a form of buyer's remorse... smile.gif

[ishmael]

Not much.

My older brother just went through a cancer scare. Part of a check up. It had me thinking about the path, quite a bit.

I kinda settled scores with it all. I've done stupid stuff, and okay stuff, and at almost fifty it seems wise to accept rather than lament.

On the other hand, I do carry a torch for a gal I probably should have married and had babies with. That would have brought a whole other set of issues. LOL. But I do miss her sometimes. I think of her as a spouse, even though it's long past. In some Valhalla we'll make love again.

It's difficult to describe, fleeting even in the experience, but some peace can settle in a man's late forties, early fifties. I feel ready for almost anything. I still look at it quizzically, and don't get me wrong, there's still suffering, but I'm mostly at peace.

[ishmael]

A sorta long excerpt from a fine short story.

She was fast asleep.

Gabriel, leaning on his elbow, looked for a few moments unresentfully on her tangled hair and half-open mouth, listening to her deep-drawn breath. So she had had that romance in her life: a man had died for her sake. It hardly pained him now to think how poor a part he, her husband, had played in her life. He watched her while she slept, as though he and she had never lived together as man and wife. His curious eyes rested long upon her face and on her hair: and, as he thought of what she must have been then, in that time of her first girlish beauty, a strange, friendly pity for her entered his soul. He did not like to say even to himself that her face was no longer beautiful, but he knew that it was no longer the face for which Michael Furey had braved death.

Perhaps she had not told him all the story. His eyes moved to the chair over which she had thrown some of her clothes. A petticoat string dangled to the floor. One boot stood upright, its limp upper fallen down: the fellow of it lay upon its side. He wondered at his riot of emotions of an hour before. From what had it proceeded? From his aunt's supper, from his own foolish speech, from the wine and dancing, the merry-making when saying good-night in the hall, the pleasure of the walk along the river in the snow. Poor Aunt Julia! She, too, would soon be a shade with the shade of Patrick Morkan and his horse. He had caught that haggard look upon her face for a moment when she was singing Arrayed for the Bridal. Soon, perhaps, he would be sitting in that same drawing-room, dressed in black, his silk hat on his knees. The blinds would be drawn down and Aunt Kate would be sitting beside him, crying and blowing her nose and telling him how Julia had died. He would cast about in his mind for some words that might console her, and would find only lame and useless ones. Yes, yes: that would happen very soon.

The air of the room chilled his shoulders. He stretched himself cautiously along under the sheets and lay down beside his wife. One by one, they were all becoming shades. Better pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age. He thought of how she who lay beside him had locked in her heart for so many years that image of her lover's eyes when he had told her that he did not wish to live.

Generous tears filled Gabriel's eyes. He had never felt like that himself towards any woman, but he knew that such a feeling must be love. The tears gathered more thickly in his eyes and in the partial darkness he imagined he saw the form of a young man standing under a dripping tree. Other forms were near. His soul had approached that region where dwell the vast hosts of the dead. He was conscious of, but could not apprehend, their wayward and flickering existence. His own identity was fading out into a grey impalpable world: the solid world itself, which these dead had one time reared and lived in, was dissolving and dwindling.

A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.

James Joyce from his story, "The Dead."

[Victor]

I was actually thinking of you when I made this post. I find myself at a place I don't particularly want to be, but have to confess I went way out my way to end up here.

On a brighter side, The Wedding Singer is on.

[Wild Wassa]

Is the remorse about opportunities lost ... or could it be, did you mature into the man you thought you would?

I had no idea then (and I still don't), so I didn't care, KO ..., :rolleyes: , OK? ... :confused: ... or KO? ... Oh! I give up.

Warren.

[ 10-17-2005, 12:19 AM: Message edited by: Wild Wassa ]

[Garrett Lowell]

The only regrets I have are in the way I treated people in my youth. I learned from those mistakes, but I wish those lessons were come by in a different manner.

I'm light years ahead of where I ever thought I'd be. Every decision I've made, no matter how important, insignificant, poor, or brilliant has led me to this particular point in time, and for that I'm immensely thankful. I honestly didn't think I'd live to be 30. So now I look at every day as if it's a bonus. I never measure myself against others, when it comes to personal things. Only against my past. I never pass up a chance to drink the good scotch or celebrate or to tell those close to me how I feel about them. Life's too short for that.