My Wisdom from the Grave

It's Wednesday morning, I'm off work. I've got some wiring to do today, wiring which will require me to shut off the power to the whole house, and the Jeanners is coming home at noon-ish, so I've only got a few hours to do it, but writing in the blog was on my list of things to do for yesterday, and I didn't get a chance to do it, so I'm taking the time to do it now. Other things from yesterday's list that didn't get done: buy paint, and wire.

The other day I was driving home from work, and I was thinking about how these days that are happening right now are probably the last days of my life that I won't be a parent (barring any serious tragedies), and how weird that is, and then I started thinking about what if I died when the kid was real young, and what if the kid never knew me and stuff like that. And then I started thinking about the different ways in which the kid would be able to get a sense of who I was/am, and of course there would be stories from the Jeanners, and stories from friends, and this here blog ain't a terrible way, either, although I think it probably presents a dumber and more silly side of me than is entirely accurate. So then I started thinking, well, if there were like 3 things that I would want the kid to know, what would those things be? And the three things were kind of like lessons, basically saying, "Well, here are the things that I've found to be true during my time here. Here they are and make the best use of them that you can." So, without further ado, here they are:

1. You often cannot control the things that will happen to you, you can only control how you react to them. Whether you are happy or not usually depends on how you react.

2. Everything changes, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse. If you are feeling good now, expect to feel bad later. If you are feeling bad now, expect to feel good later. Don't get too comfy.

3. Some days life feels too short, some days life feels too long. However it might feel on a particular day, it is always: impermanent. Live accordingly. Enjoy the things around you while they're around you, and try to waste as little time as possible on something once you decide you don't enjoy it. Easier said than done.

4. The best decision I ever made was to decide that loving Jeannie and spending time with her was the most important thing in my life, that as long as we were together then anything else in life that happened would be tolerable, and that without her company nothing in life would really be right. I decided then and there that I would do whatever it takes to be with her. I remember making this decision as if it was yesterday, and it came out of a nervous breakdown-type-thing att the end of college that was probably the worst time of my life. So, as Brian Eno has said, "Beautiful things grow out of shit." Once you know that you love someone or something, commit. It doesn't have to be any sort of official commitment or anything, just a sentence in your brain and in your heart that you can go back to when things are hard or aren't working as you planned.


Ok, that's all I've got. Futurebaby (aka Le Tigre), if you're reading this and I'm not there, BE GOOD AND HAVE FUN.

To wire.