Thursday, April 10

Today I am in Chicago. Since I feel I'm writing this blog mostly for myself (and it's more than a feeling - I know I'm the only person who reads it - otherwise people would leave COMMENTS - hint, hint), I want to start using this space to say things are more personally relevant to me.

Case in point, I feel finally, at the tender age of 37, that I can be more honest with myself. I am starting to realize that aging isn't so much about the external changes as the internal, and that only with time and experience and years on the clock can you really learn to appreciate all of the things that have come before. When you are in your teens you only think about graduating high school and being 21. When you are 21, you think about getting the job, impressing people, flirting, having money, achieving a certain status. Along the way you make a lot of mistakes. Then - mercifully - when you are in your 30s you start to put all of this shit together and think about how you want to lead your life in a way that matters. The mistakes of the past lose their tarnish because you look at them less as mistakes and more as lessons. You want to get to the bottom of things. Why am I the way I am? What experiences have had the most effect on me, and if they are negative experiences how am I continuing to let them inform my behavior? For some people the getting-to-the-bottom-of-things is scary. To me, it's a gift. I feel truly relaxed when I say things out loud that I have long thought but never said. It's cliched but there really is closure in acknowledging something - as though saying it or writing it makes it so and lets you move beyond.

So....where is all of this going? Well, even though this blog is mostly for me it's still in the public domain, so I will leave the genesis of this post for my private thoughts. But suffice to say that I am ready to acknowledge, accept, and put to rest those things that have in the past dragged me down, and use the remaining (and growing) strength to look once again toward the future. It's a nice sight.