Alternate Ending

There’s a lot of name calling in my life.

It’s affectionate. I have a lot of good friends. They refer to me as Turkey Breath, or Lowlife, even S***head (that one always makes me smile).

It’s practical. How they refer to me tells me which “me” I should put on.

If someone calls me their “moon howlin’ buddy” they are telling me they are there for me. If I want to talk at 2:00 a.m., then call. If I want advice, they give it, kindly, with gentle honesty. If I need prayer, they will each do it,right then and for as long as I need it. If I am stranded in the hills somewhere, it is one of them I would call. If I need someone to help me move something, or lift something, or anything that any or them have the ability to provide, it is available.

If a child calls me “maestro” instead of “teacher,” when they, in their excitement, slip into their native language, I know they think of me as someone who holds a lot of status and they will be respectful, affectionate.

The names are serious. They encourage. They say I am introspective. I’m eclectic. They call me creative, kind.

If I’m called neighbor or mister or sir or dude or subscriber or “the man who has two kids” or “the guy who just got a divorce” or “his dog just died” or “the guy who needs to mow his lawn,” I know how to react, how to act. I know what sort of conversation I should engage in, what attitude to take in my thinking. I hear their voices, I see myself reflected in their face, body language, and I see who I am to them. They provide me a mirror. They show me a reflection of myself, I learn a little more about who I am.

Each day I walk among hundreds of people. Children, colleagues, superiors, friends, clerks, acquaintances, members of my spiritual family. Each person reflects my actions, the projected “me” I find useful for that moment, and I judge who I am by who they are. I am surrounded by mirrors reflecting who I am, each one distorting a little, ripples in the surfaces.

I have an unusual opportunity. I have a chance to see a reflected image of myself without, or at least fewer, distortions. I have the luxury of being honest. I have never really known who I am, except when I was a child and those ideas I had about the moods of clouds, and the way our back alley viewed me as I tore through on my bike. I had ideas about how far away the moon must be by comparing fences and houses. I had ideas about faith, who Jesus was/is/will be, and how I fit into it. I had encounters with the universe which shaped a relationship with my heart, mind, and faith. I was less likely to see a distorted view of myself because I hadn’t quite put it together yet.

But now I am 52. I have resources I have never had before, and I can look harder, more honestly than I have been. I can shed the image of my reflection in Brenda’s face. With it I can shed the reflection of myself as I tried to be a “me” that interacted with her in that peculiar dance we have done through the years. I can read or write or anything I wish, to run our lives the way I see fit.

The quite strange post before this one began as a framework for understanding the order of events in my life, help with writing a different post.

Since posting that strange chronology, I have thought... I wrote of two futures, an attempt at self honesty. I wanted to reevaluate the future I would have had with Brenda, knowing now parts of her I hadn’t understood before. I wanted to write an honest future without her, honest even to diminishing certain dreams.

Any future I write will be incorrect, I haven’t quite figured out how to skip on and off this timeline to see for myself.

I think the two futures were not exactly what they really would be. I think I will succeed in many of the things I want to do. I think there will be many things which will happen I don’t expect. I think my seriousness to be truthful to myself will shape me, new growth resulting in a different future.

It is a profoundly startling epiphany seeing her not the person I thought she was for nearly three decades is someone different, and that the “me” I am, what I do, what I think, what I feel, is made up so much performing the “me’s” needed for the situations I find myself in.

I haven’t a lot of certainty of who I really am, if I strip away all the projections I use, need... to buy an item at a store, or check the validity of a medical bill, or respond to a hurting friend.

At this time I have an unusual opportunity. I can be whoever I want to be. Including the me who walks through life knowing himself to be more than the reflections of this universe, this chamber of mirrors.

Possible futures are sort of like the DVDs advertising alternate endings, I could tell different endings to my story, different than the previous post. There are many possible rewrites, one for each moment I am free to choose what I will do, what I will be. I might walk through life, each step closer to the true me, project fewer convenient “me’s” and simply “be,” more.

How about this one?

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Alternate Ending:

2029 We divorced.

I married four years later. Someone surprisingly kind. It was easy to relax and easy to be comfortable with who I am.

I tore down the house and built that house I’d fantasized. Isaac and his family lived with us . Their children have almost moved on. I found time for doing the reading and writing and thinking I love, I found myself growing closer to God. I became quieter.

I found myself slowing down.

Most of my interactions have been through the latest gizmos they use to make it easier to “talk” to other people. I still make it a part of my life to frequently see a few.

I did surprising things with my art and writing. I was myself, and the Lord blessed me.

I found the journey I began was about understanding who I was before I started reinforcing particular reflections to particular people.

Something about 1961... About my faith... The year I learned things about God no one told me, simple truths I could see before I let reflections blurred my vision.

I found being who I was, how He did subtle things to my spirit when I was very young, made my life more pleasing, to me and to Him.

A good thing too. In caring less about the “me” I need to be, and the “me” that simply loves God and follows my heart, I love people more. The more I enjoy learning and puzzling and singing and praying and being creative, the more the needs of my life were met. I did very well.

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There must be many other alternate futures for me.

My children are upset about their mother being gone. Upset the dog suddenly died. The house is suddenly far more empty than it was. They are trying to please their dad, with all his demands of them to suddenly learn how to do things they never did before.

My children are worried for their father, a little manic lately, and want to make it easier for him. Their kind hearts...

My children are reaching huge milestones in their lives, gaining adulthood (Isaac voted for the first time yesterday! An adult U.S. citizen!). They are trying to figure out what their roles are, what they can do, can’t do,who they are.

There is the chance to see a life that simply does things a lot different than I would have.

I love the conversations I am having with my children. We talk about the real stuff now. We talk about the real way we feel about things, what we really think, what we really might do. Te topics have shifted to important things.

Life is strange.

I am suddenly free to reinvent myself, my future. My home.

This guy, the guy I really am, is free to draw, or write, or pray, or talk with my children, in new ways.

It’s scary and sad and tiring (so very tiring) and exhilarating.