I have reached a point of sadness with my children. I have no regrets with respect to them. I have been a good father to the extent of my ability, with good results. Yet they have emerged from childhood. They are no longer those sweet, innocent little children. I still call my youngest my “little person”, but have taken to calling my oldest my “medium person”.
Nothing underscores the passage of time like the growth of children, and it is bittersweet. Soon they will be gone, off making their way, as is the way of life and time. We have had many good times, but that doesn’t prevent a bit of melancholy as I reflect on it.
One thing that becomes clear is that you can’t really hold experiences. There is no one peak experience that will last. Everything good that happens to us passes. This is a fact, and there is no use whining about it.
The only possible wise adaptation to this is to learn how to continually integrate NEW positive experiences. It is so easy to lapse into the past, to rehearse times long ago, to “remember when”. This is death.
Throughout my life, when confronted with difficulty, my response has always been to attack, to not wait for events to come to me. How do you attack this melancholy? It seems the first step is to acknowledge it, then to accept it has no true merit, and need last only as long as I want to hold on to it. I think it is often easier to hold on to a known melancholy than to accept the possibility of unknown positive experiences.
So many lives have second and third acts. The example that comes first to mind is Colonel Sanders, who achieved close to nothing remarkable until his mid-60’s, and died one of the most recognized and respected faces in the world. His last decade must have been a lot of fun, not least his charity work which his wealth enabled him to fund.
Grandchilden will be a lot of fun, if I get any, and there is in the end this light hiding throughout this field of dreams that I get glints of from time to time. I feel it, and see it in my mind. I choose to believe–with evidence–that this world is much more interesting and beautiful than we are capable of realizing while we wear out our bodies and our clock.
To smile in doubt is an act of courage, one which I hope to be equal to the rest of my life.