Strange reminiscence

For no particular reason this evening, I was thinking about some of the things that have happened to me in my life. I’ve been cataloguing (mentally, of course) some of the more important things that have occurred during my 25 years on the planet, and (blame it on the Eric Clapton I have playing in the background) I’ve realized that I’ve lived through a lot more than I have given myself credit for in earlier posts.

While I may not have ever been on a roller-coaster, watched the Godfather movies, or been in a relationship with a woman that didn’t end with her laughter or her pregnant with some tennis-player’s child or a form-letter rejection, I have done quite a lot of things, and been through much more eventful things than many other people, I’d wager.

There have been good things in my life. I have spent an entire night stroking the hair of a friend as she slept with her head on my chest after staying up for hours talking her through a breakup. I have been named one of the top 20 scientific minds of students my age by a Kansas university. I have qualified for and competed in national tournaments for my policy debate skills. I’ve been told that I should have considered a career in music because of my voice. I have dedicated my life to living as decently as I believe I can manage, even if I seem apt to have a failure of my will more often than I would like.

There have also been bad things in my life. I’ve held the small fragile body of my only pet dog, my sweet little Mitzi (a 3.5 lb Yorkshire terrier inherited from my grandmother), while the veterinarian killed her with an injection after she had a fully incapacitating stroke. I’ve looked into the face of a close friend (to whom I literally owed my life), as he lay in his coffin after cutting his wrists not hours after I last saw him. I walked out of my high school prom alone after discovering that my date was playing a cruel joke on me as part of a dare.

I have lived with the knowledge that my brother and I were a cover to make our family seem normal in small-town Kansas, and to cover up the marriage of convenience for my parents so that nosy people wouldn’t pry.

I’ve waited in fear through my father’s occasional heart attacks and my mother’s bout with cancer, knowing that my father’s father died of a heart attack, and my mother’s mother died of cancer.

I have saved the life of a person I did not respect by using CPR on her while she was unconscious until the paramedics arrived.

I will soon get to be the best man at my only brother’s wedding to a marvelous woman, and I couldn’t be happier about the whole event.

So while I may have room to complain that my life hasn’t contained some of the things that I might otherwise wish it would contain, I certainly can’t claim that I haven’t lived 25 years worth of experiences. My life is uniquely my own, and I have thus far played my hand as best as I was able with the cards dealt to me by fate, and I should be proud of the way I have negotiated the game.

While I as yet may not have lived an ordinary life (as I would like), I can be comforted by the fact that I have lived an eventful life.