You always know that your whole life can change in a minute. Minutes we hope for, like winning the lottery, meeting the right person or finding the right...minutes we dread, like a terrible car accident, the death of a loved one or the dreaded diagnosis. We don't know when these moments are coming, we are aware of their possibility but for the most part our lives are spent between these moments.
Most of our lives are unremarkable selections of what to wear or what to have for dinner, perhaps who to date or what we want to do with our lives but even those seem to evolve over time until your choices come together into a lifestyle and in the end, your life. Sometimes, we can trace a change to a particular decision but often we don't exactly know when we became so committed to the life that we are living.
Today, a small black bear walked out from behind my van...right to the end of the driveway and in that moment, I realized, that my life was changed. This person that has lived her entire life just outside the two largest cities in the United States was now living among the bears and the deer.
As intentional as my move to Colorado was, and as beautiful as I think it is here, I never thought for one moment about living with such large wildlife. To think that I was so impressed by a friendly squirrel last year...a double rainbow last month...and now a young bear in my driveway. It is a staggering thought.
A certain part of me has always wanted to live in such a place, but another part of me cannot believe the transitions that have brought me to this moment. I didn't think of my new home as being as rural as this event portrays it. I won't change it, if I wanted to I doubt that I could actually pull it off anyway. I have committed myself to enjoying this life, as different as it is from the rest of my life, it is a good life just the same...but a bear in the yard? That gives me pause.
I have been building my life here slowly, because that is my speed since everything happened. Each minute that brought these huge changes was not necessarily more than a situation to be dealt with, the best I could. I didn't handle them all well, by a long shot but I have accepted this truth and still I know that my life will change in a minute, though when that minute arrives is a total mystery to me.
Will it be the moment I've been waiting for? Will it be a moment that I did not see coming? Like a bear napping by the creek, that thrilled me or like that same bear popping out from behind the van that made me aware of my vulnerability? Certainly. I hope it is something much more satisfying like meeting the love of my life as well as the successful resolution of legal matters that I decline to discuss. Between these two ideas are a hundred more, each more abstract or fantastical but if a bear can and, in fact, did appear from behind the van in my driveway, is it any more fantastic to think that in a minute I could publish any part of my writing from the last thirty years? Or become a non-smoker which I have been pursuing just as long. Or establish a home business that allows me to work when I can, and which I crave? Or become the artist that I have always dreamed of? Which is more realistic? Which is probable, or does that even matter?
This house on the corner, with a creek at the back has all these possibilities and more, but for the first time in my life, I think I might take up target practice...it's a new idea that could change my life, in a minute...
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