When I made the decision to slow down and simplify my life I decided that from here until it ends I will surround myself with only people and things that have a connection to the world many of us old-timers remember as a better one than we will ever see again. The 21st Century isn't the future I envisioned and for many of us it has only been one fast-paced disappointment after another.
There is a reason that nostalgia is so popular for so many people, it brings comfort and it allows our minds to revisit the best places and times of our lives and when we had more energy and reasons to hope each new day would only get better. When I compare the people and things that surrounded me when I was young with what I have and see every day now I find myself longing for something that nothing I can do and no amount of money can ever bring back.
Maybe it is a photograph from long ago, that when I look at it I wish I could climb inside of it and stay there; be again with the people in the picture or touch an object that is seen in it, or stand in the spot the photographer stood when he or she captured that moment in time.
If we could some of us might want to climb in and stay there forever! That's how it is for me anytime I look at old images of the people and the world that I believed was better and made more sense than it does now; before so much time passed and chipped away most of the reasons I was full of hope for the future and was more energetic than I am now. Even some of the people that are still here, many that I wanted to know and did know back then are no longer pleasingly familiar to me because they changed and I changed. I watch them doing all they can to blend in with people and surroundings that none of us could have imagined before and I wonder why they feel a need to do that as much as they might wonder why I don't.
The music I listen to now is the same mix that provided the soundtrack for almost everyone once upon a time, and more and more I find myself searching for ways to keep reminding myself of how lucky I was before most of that luck ran out! Don't get me wrong; I still believe that I am the luckiest man alive and my reasons for believing that have filled the pages of several books I have written and published. But writing and sharing those stories has only been an abbreviated recording of what I was able to experience along the way and I don't think there has ever been a writer that could document all of the reasons I feel as I do about most things. I lived it and I know I can't translate all of it into words!
My books and blogs barely touch the surface of my very complex brain that sees and feels only what it wants to now. I cannot write anything that penetrates deeper into it to fully expose who I think I am or that person I believe I was before I dropped out and walked away from anything and everyone that I don't want to be a part of any longer. I find myself watching this "future" from a very comfortable personal zone that I have created for myself; it is as if I am in my own zip-code away from ugly realities and anything else I don't find pleasure in, but I like it here!
I see the world and study its people from a place called Facebook where nearly everyone there is eager to tell everyone how things are going for them; what angers them, their pains and sorrows, and it provides me a schematic to follow when I want to avoid all the people and circumstances around the world that I am better off away from. I see what pleases them and what doesn't on television and in publications and I needn't walk or drive much more than a few blocks from my personal zone to be reminded of the reasons I have chosen a mild form of solitude over chaos. My lifestyle wouldn't quench the thirst for belonging and mattering to others that most people have but I like it and I embrace it!
I think of myself as a part-time participant in life; I engage when I feel like it and I back away when I know it is in my best interest. Learning how and when to do that allows more freedom to do the really important things I feel really are to me; things like quality time with my dogs, filling my days with small achievements that are more important to me than someone else and keeping my blood pressure and emotions at an easily managed level by not allowing anyone or anything to dictate what I should be doing or how I should feel. I choose my own pleasures and decide for myself what angers me and I react to all of it with little or no regard for what anyone else thinks about it. I can afford to do that now so I take advantage of it every chance I get!
In other words, there isn't anything that could be described as orthodox about the guy who is writing this post! It began with a picture of my car and I needn't tell anyone that saw it what it is or what car company manufactured it. Anyone who is old enough to understand anything I have ever written knows what it is and I included it here to make that very point!
It is a 21st Century version of what it started out as way back in 1964. It looks similar to the first one that rolled off the assembly line back then but it blends in nicely with every car on the road today. I want to believe I am something like that car! It is an expression more than it is anything else to me. There are better and more expensive vehicles out there crowding the roads and highways but to me there aren't many that make the same statement that mine does. It hearkens back to a better world and when cars had more personality than most new ones do now. That time when it was easier to identify stark differences between a Ford, a Chevrolet or a Dodge.
It was built several years after my parents passed away, and after many more people that were special in my life died but they wouldn't have to ask what it is if they could come back and see it today. That gives me an undeniable sense of peace and comfort because it is something they would expect me to own and drive in the 21st Century. My dogs aren't much different than any of my other pets through the years and I don't think I am, so it only makes sense to me that my car should also be another familiar extension of everything else I want around me.
Maybe it would appear to some that I live in the past or that I drag it around as if I am fastened to it by imaginary ropes or chains, but I think I stay connected through what has become a necessary osmosis for me; like a prescription I need to take to keep feeling younger than I am before I get old and feeble minded and can no longer feel anything at all!
If anyone thinks I am already tetched in the head then so be it, because remember, I chose the time and the place for this mental transformation, I didn't wait for the natural order of life to do me in!
That is what this post is about; holding onto something when we don't want to let go and when we don't have to. We let go of things either because someone else thinks we should or when we no longer have a need for something, or when we want to make others believe we fit in with them by being like them. But most of the people I am really like are gone now and what they knew and who they were is as precious to me as anyone or anything around me now. So I hold on, and I keep dreams and legends alive in ways that may only mean something special to me.
The garage that car is parked in was the shelter for my dad's cars and it is where he and I shared so many memorable times together, either tinkering with tools to fix or build something or just getting to know and understand one another better. Through the years there have been other cars with horses in the center of the grill and even a few blue ones; in fact, the first one was a 1966 and it too was blue and when I squint my eyes I can fool my brain into seeing its ghost or reincarnation.
What I and many others would give to be able to travel back to 1966! Of course we can't do that, but what I am able to do is take advantage of an imagination and my own spirit that time hasn't been able to erase to keep alive, if only for me, something worth keeping.
Because like I have been trying to explain, legend has it that I lived a pretty good life. I saw what now seems like a perfect world before it stopped seeming perfect and that keeps me feeling like I am the luckiest man alive. I fill books with stories like this one and from time-to-time I see a monetary reward for my efforts. But making money out words that I am able to string together isn't why I do that, I have enough money to see me through this day and some more. Money cannot buy back or add to what I really want anyway, it can only pay the rent and cover the other expenses of what I already have and keep it all going for a little while longer.
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