January 27th, a Tuesday

At first I thought I might have writer's block.  And, you know, that's why I wasn't blogging as much as usual.  But that's not it.  I wouldn't let a little thing like writer's block have its way with me.  It's more of a human nature thing.  I used to write every day, five days a week, and then three days a week.  It was a commitment that I took very seriously and I prepared for it mentally and emotionally and did it, no matter what.  Once I put myself on a little sabbatical, it was easy to get lazy.  I still think about things I want to blog about, but don't always actually get to the blogging part, instead stop at the thinking part.  Change is hard, even when you have already made it over a short period of time.  It is always easy to slip back to the way things were before the change happened and even congratulate yourself that you changed at all, even temporarily.  We all love our comfort zone, even if it's not that good for us.  It's just so....comfortable, you know.  The trick is to make the change the new comfort zone.  Not so easy.  But remember, a very wise man told me over and over a long time ago that life is not a rehearsal.  Then he shot himself.  Really, he did.  But I still believe what he said.  He actually proved it.  Shooting yourself is obviously not a rehearsal.  It's the real thing.

So let's go with the idea that each day is the performance, not the rehearsal.  You have to break it down to get inside of it.  So you wake up and you have this one particular day.  It may look like the same one you had yesterday but that would be pretty much impossible.  Sure, there are most likely many things about the one day that resemble the day before but that's where it stops.  Everything is constantly changing and time is constantly passing and your life is moving along, at a clip that will alarm you one day once most of it has passed.  Maybe you will take comfort in the fact that each day was predictably pleasant just as you liked it, like the Dutchman, full of enjoyed rituals and deep pleasures.  Others will complain that they just don't know where the time went.  How time flies, they will say.  Sort of like how you can barely remember rehearsals once the show actually opens.  But you are judged on the work you put in during the rehearsal period and it all shows and you wonder if you could have made more of that time while it was happening.  But too bad, the rehearsal period is over and you can't get it back.  Oh, well.

Certain things happen to people that could make it impossible to retain the comfortable pleasures they once enjoyed.  There could come a time when you long for the way things were yesterday, even though you really weren't all that impressed with yesterday when it was today.  Maybe you get sick, or lose your job, or lose your significant other, or lose your mind.  You might be disappointed with yourself that you really didn't appreciate what you had when you had it.  You can actually avoid ever having that feeling by really spending time looking hard at the things that make up your normal day and becoming more aware and even more grateful.  Then you could get damned close to living in the present, in the moment, and that right there can be the change that transforms you.  Sometimes the simplest acts are the most profound.  Once you start to get it, everything changes.  Don't ya love that change word?  I wonder why people don't use it more.  It is one of the most powerful weapons we have to improve our lives.  Imagine everything we don't know and what a little tiny piece of it we could learn today that we simply didn't know before that. 

Sometimes we blame things on the people in our lives.  If only he treated me like this, if only she didn't try to get me to do that, if only I could have more time to myself, if only we could do more things together.  But I don't believe in that.  A lot of the time you just need to change the way you look at things, not the people you look at it with.  Trust me, tomorrow could look a lot worse.  Don't waste your time bitching about the silly things. 

Yup, life is not a rehearsal.  This is it, folks.  Sure, I stress about whether anyone reads my blog or even cares about it.  But when I am gone, when my time is over, at least there will be a record of me and who I was and what I cared about and thought about.  And if someone cares about it while I am still here blogging, that's a bonus, wouldn't you say?  I'm pretty sure this is the real thing.  And the clock is ticking. 

GR