Now

I guess this continues on from what I was writing about before.  It seems songs really influence me.  I have just been listening to an album I have not heard before by The Afters.  They sing “Welcome to the place where you belong….now you’re home.”
I seem to see everything in absolutes.  That does not mean I always live the way I see things.  There are so many distractions.  Sometimes the distractions can seemingly last ages or be a brief interlude. 
Whatever happens I want to make up my own mind.  I have felt for a long time there is an attempt to do our thinking for us.  Visiting supermarkets and general stores there is often music or a radio station playing.  It is as if I cannot be trusted to think for myself.  Mostly there is really good music playing and I want to linger (I think that is the intention).
I used to joke in chat rooms that I was a picture of concentration and while describing how focused I was say “oh look, a butterfly.”    When I am honest with myself, I acknowledge how easily distracted I am.  There are heaps of things I can see, or feel, or do that while legitimate (and other things that could only be described as bad for me), may not be that way for me at the time.
It is so easy to take things for granted.  No doubt many have experienced things that I have.  At this age it is expected.  My dad who lived to 97 used to read the obituaries each day but gave up as all his friends had gone.  I sure did not expect having a friend collapse and die in his 30’s when I was his age.  Another friend on Facebook who I met through table tennis disappeared off the planet.  One day I was reading their posts and the next day they were no more.  That was a shock to the system.
It emphasizes to me big time the fleeting nature of things.  “Here one day, gone the next” I think relates to that.  It is weird, I am now 61.  That was inconceivable to me once.  Yet it has come so quickly.  When I started work at QUT the students were my contemporaries.  It only seems like yesterday.  Then they were the children of my contemporaries.  These days they are the grandkids of my contemporaries.  When did that happen?  I was just busy living life and the age thing crept up on me.
It amazes me how often I hear people my age comment how they would do things differently if they could go back.  I had that conversation with someone I hardly know at table tennis the other night.  There are things in my past I would change if I could.  I really do not know I would go back if I could though.  Life is a weary journey.  I enjoy it, but the future looks better to me.  I had a chance to buy a home in Townsville.  All the owner wanted was ten grand up front and the rest of 25 grand paid as rent.  The bank would not lend me the money.  If I had my time again, I would push harder.  It is now “the” suburb in Townsville.
I cannot go back.  What is past is past, but I love that my past does not define me.  Now defines me.  Not yesterday or tomorrow but now.  It is all I’ve got. I want to make the most of it.