December 6, 2002

• Near Life Experience

  
  

  Every year I start a little earlier thinking about my New Year's Resolutions.  I'm too dysfunctional to just enjoy the holiday season so I preempt the guilt that comes every January 1st for a bit of balance to get me safely through the month of December.  I really have a hard time with that whole "sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof" thing.  I've looked back over resolutions of the past several years and it seems that if nothing else, I'm consistent.  For at least the past five in a row, I've made a vow to live in a way that is "true to me", "my authentic self", "honest about my feelings." 

  
  

  But, the truth is that every year along about January 2 or 3, I have one of those opportunities to either be myself, or say what the other person wants to hear.   Through ths recurring failure to live up to my commitment I've figured out that Real Character isn't something that is decided one day as a matter of will, it's what I do in the moment of decision.  And it isn't what I do in that one big moment when all the lights are on and the microphone is live.  Character happens day in and day out when no one but me is looking.

  
  

  I've been looking lately and not caring so much for the reflection I see in the mirror.  I had a conversation with my Aunt whom I really love but don't get to see very often.  We were talking about the sour disposition of my Grandmother.  Aunt Janice is 75 years old now and she testifies that Grandma has been sour for at least that long.  All I could say was that I hoped when I was old that I wasn't "that kind of" old.  Aunt Janice laughed and said she could never imagine me being anything but young at heart - that I was the most playful of all her many nieces and nephews.  My jaw dropped.

  
  

  See I've been feeling rather old lately.  I've been looking around at the things that I haven't done, the places I haven't been, and well, (here comes the whiny part) I've been feeling too tired to make up for lost time.  Isn't it funny how a chance remark can redefine your focus?  I feel young and playful when I talk with Aunt Janice.  She expects me to be that way and voila - it happens.  So I got wondering what would happen if I expected me to be young and playful.  I've been trying it on for size.

  
  

  Dang, but this whole visualization thing really works!  I get up in the morning and instead of moaning to myself about my aching back, I do the thing that strikes me as fun in the moment.  Last night I stuck out my tongue and blew a raspberry at my Mom.

  
  

  You have to understand that at almost 40 years old, I'm still more intimidated by my Mom than any other human I can imagine on the face of the earth.  Tim never saw the Divine Secrets of YaYa Sisterhood last summer, but I'm buying the DVD.  He will recognize Vivianne Walker.  Oh, my Mom doesn't drink, but she could give the YaYa Queen lessons in keeping kids off balance.  Too many of those scenes are straight out of my very southern life for me to view it as fiction.

  
  

  Seconds after I stuck my tongue out at Mom, I realized what I had done and froze.  I moved away from my kids so that when the lightening struck they'd be out of harm's way.  But, you know what?  This is the really weird part.  Mom laughed.  I didn't want to push my luck so I didn't take her temperature, blood pressure, or check her reflexes for neurological damage.  I don't quite know what I think about it all in the cold light of today.  The moment came and I didn't think about it, I just acted.  And it was fun.  And I survived.

  
  

  I think it may have been a near life experience.  Having gotten close to the fire, I find that I like it.  I'm looking around for my opportunity to be spontaneous again (yes, I'm planning to be spontaneous and I know exactly how contradictory that is but it's working for me.)  While I'm waiting for that next live moment, I'm packing my bags and loading my van because there is still the chance that the only reason God didn't strike me dead last time is that even HE couldn't believe I did it.

  
  

  (The weather is looking like it will hold for me to get home on Saturday, lets all pray that it happens.)

  • 12:10 am
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