I entered adulthood as a single person with a college degree. The world was at my doorstep. I had the tiger by the tail armed with all my idealism and hope. I knew I would conquer the world at some future point.
I entered my 30s, married, no children, working hard to be the entrepreneur who would be one of America's millionaires without a worry about tomorrow and living the good life. I figured that would take about 10 years if I did it right.
I entered my 40s still married, two children in elementary school, and working for the state about 10-12 hours a day. The entrepreneur adventure didn't work out well. I liked my new job well enough. I had received an advanced degree to get an edge up on the salary scale and promotions. The aging process had started. I still played on an adult basketball team for exercise, but had lost a lot of my quickness. I sported glasses. Life had taken a twist. The family was not cohesive anymore. The children had become older and younger teens. Their choice of friends were not the ones I thought I had had at their age, so I didn't like them much. Their schedules were involved, so it became complex to juggle work and children. The one value I had put my hope in from childhood and tried to follow faithfully was no longer making any sense. It hadn't delivered on its promises. Working for the state had also become a rather dead-end job. My mate was living a challenging life fighting alcoholism. The world became a rather large wasteland.
I entered my 50s on a tragic note. My 19-year-old son died from cancer the year before. Life stood still for about two years. My other child made it through high school well enough, but got married, divorced within 6 months and decided to participate in the drug scene with all its attendant pitfalls, which she fell into all in their own turn. She had a failure to launch after her teenage years. She ended up pregnant without a mate to stand by her, so she returned home to refresh her life and get help raising her child. My father had developed dementia and had died 8 days before my son after an 11 month illness. My mate wanted to divide our belongings and part ways. Life was beginning to take its toll on happiness and sanity. I met a person who returned my sanity to me, but life always twists the plot and this person and I had less than a year's worth of an intersecting life.
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True story - all of the above. It's a first person account of someone who started on a hopeful note in life. It represents so many lives that I run into. Some of them are worse than the one above, some of them not quite so filled with challenges. Ironically, I tell this sotry at a time of year when hope springs eternal in the human breast. It's spring, so all of nature is awakening from winter. It's beautiful. Many young people are graduating with the world at their doorstep.
The last chapter of the above person's life has not been written. There is yet time for a reinterpretation of life's events to offer a beautiful ending. The person told all of the events to build a worthy character as a gift to offer providence upon entering the door to what comes after life on Earth, to let those following him, whose world is just now at their doorstep, see how life unravels if one is not careful.
The story above is certainly not a new story, not even an old story with a new twist. A play I read once, Oedupus the King, ended somewhat on the same note as the account above. The chorus chanted the purpose of the play at the very end to all those in attendance in an old Greek amphitheater long ago in 430 BCE. The last lines are printed below.
CHORUS: You that live in my ancestral Thebes, behold this Oedipus, —
Him who knew the famous riddles and was a man most masterful;
not a citizen who did not look with envy on his lot—
see him now and see the breakers of misfortune swallow him!
Look upon that last day always.
Count no mortal happy till he has passed the final limit of his life secure from pain.
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