Friday 6 March 2015

A Good Life

Idly wandering around on social media recently i heard a voice from my dim and distant past pipe up "is that really jeni? do you remember me?"

I couldn't ever forget as he, yes he, and i were....close....very close.... for a while.... quite a long while actually.   

We were young and thought we would live forever and the sun would always shine and nothing would change.....he's now sans hair and a pompous boffin at a university....  i'm now sans mobility and an opinionated blogger in supported housing.    life does change and the sun doesn't always shine and we don't live forever.   

Over the next few days we had a couple of phone calls and decided nostalgia aint wot it used to be and went our separate ways, but something he said stuck with me.   "you laugh a lot don't you?" he said, "how can you laugh so much when your life is so limited and you hurt all the time?"   i think i said something fatuous about silver linings and there always being someone worse off and laughing instead of crying, all the usual cliches, but it did get me thinking because sometimes there's a sliver of truth in cliches.

If i were asked the question now, having had time to mull and ponder i'd say it's a decision.   moment by moment we have a choice to focus on the good or bad the universe  throws at us.   

there's nothing we can do to make that sun keep shining, 

there's no way he could make his hair keep growing, 

no doctor could stop my spine deteriorating, 

no life can avoid  pain and failure and rejection and ageing and dying, 

B U T

we can do something about the way we respond 

and we can learn to smile through the tears 

it's the only one i'll ever have so no matter what this day holds i will dredge a laugh from the depths of my soul and say

I T S   A   G O O D   L I F E












 

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