This past weekend, I had a nice talk with an old friend. So good to just shoot the breeze. Somehow, our conversation meandered onto the topic of our youth, our parents, what we did for work while at home.
It is a good exercise to think about your life, your journey through time and to come to peace with it. Everyone has skeletons and ghosts in their closet, everyone has things to be grateful and happy for. If we are all honest, we all live in both shadow and light.
Myself, I’ve always been cognizant of the fortunate and unfortunate aspects of my life. Here though - I’d like to follow a thesis I have - that it is not just the light that makes you shine - it too is that shadow following you.
“We are like olives. Only when we are crushed, do we become our best.” the great Yiannis Kouros - sent in a message to me before one of my 24 record attempt runs.
My parents. Bless them. But we had it tough in the early days. For years, even decades. It’s not nice to live poor. I had to work days that would have broken most grown men. I’m not exaggerating. My father was a tyrant (love him, he’s much different these days) and I lived in fear of him. I’d shake inside terribly, cowering, every time he raised his voice. Still to this day, I suffer this kind of PTSD regarding anger from people close to me.
Yet, this same shadow, made me into what I am today. Tough physically as nails. I could run 100 miles, do a thousand push-ups, fall off a roof and get up like a superhero - unbroken. That hard work alone taught me to love myself and my conversations with myself. It made me reflective and able to tap these words that others might gain sustenance from. My father too, kept the family going, put food on the table. He worked hard. Still does. He wasn’t just my shadow, he was also my light.
I could go on about a lot but will stop here. My message today is to take your shadows as they come and go and know they are also nurturing you, creating YOU. All you need do is have faith, endure and come on through …
Why I turned out the way I am
It’s for your own good
my father belted.
My mother did the same
at the dinner table with peas.
Mr. Drury in grade 7 had me
write lines of “P”s,
“It’s for your own good.” he opined.
Cigarettes are now $10 a pack
and casinos $1,000 plane rides away.
“It’s for your own good,” they say.
Seat belts, sanitariums and saints
always a safe, sane, step away.
My wife, my ever always wife
books me monthly to see a doctor
as much a dunce as a doctor can be.
All he offers are pills and pleasantries.
They both say, “It’s for your own good.”
Wars, weddings, sprayed green lawns
taxes, papal proclamations and government acts.
“It’s all for your own good,” they declare when asked.
My life nearly done and
I have yet to truly taste
what we call — free.
I followed footsteps
and danced to my own good
doing as I was told.
Thinking back, I now know
how I came to be who I am
this man, here and now
finally at home in the world
on edge, aware,
of what is really good for me.
My flusher finally broke.
It’s like one day you wake up
and realize there ain’t no jello tree
or the dictionary was written by a pedophile
and
you head out the door to plant or write your own.