Do Overs

There are the scads of acquaintances and the few friends we've kept for decades. I have a couple that fit into that decade category. I was talking with one about how our lives managed to end up where they were at from what we thought, hoped it would, and the fact there are no “do-overs.” You can't go back again.

He was telling me of a memory that I had a dim recollection of. We apparently were hiking around Anawan rock in Rehoboth when we sat down and just talked. We were in our mid 20's, starting our careers and both still hunting for that girl. We both planned, sloppily, our futures with a certain confidence that it was ordained to happen. Well, our prescribed futures did come about but what we refused to take into consideration is that life's changes don't end there. I guess we can partially blame our parent's generation, who had the amazing, dumb luck to be living in the US after WW2. The economy shot up and stability in life could be had in the US, while Europe dug itself out of the rubble. We thought that would continue with our lives. Why shouldn't it? We saw daily reminders of how our parents, friends' lives were stable and predictable. Whoops! Nothing remains the same, even if it does for a few decades, things eventually change.

In his case, he found his niche in the accounting field, managed to rise in it and was hoping to work for one of the “Big Five” in New York one day. The “Big Five” were the five accounting houses to work for if you wanted to ascend the ladder of success. If you ended up there, you made it.

He found the girl too.

Flash forward a decade or so and now he's w/o that girl or the NYC job. The change in his job was no fault of his own as the financial crash made it vanish like morning mist. His wife left due to them growing apart, falling out of love and straying.

He wondered what the hell happened.

I thought the same to myself, about his life, mine and others, “Yeah..just what in hell did happen?”

What happened were the stable, solid non-variables became variable. That wasn't supposed to happen. But it did. Uncontrollable, unforseen events overruled our beliefs and once we shook ourselves from those beliefs that no longer sufficed, we modified our bearings and had we not, we'd be sunk. Bigger winds blew us off from our hoped for landings and the window of opportunity, our youth, was closing fast too.

“What the hell do I do now? Where do I go? How can I get that happiness again?” he asks.

I told him that happiness, as we thought as kids, as we were bombarded with day in and say out, was the “happily ever after” story. I'm not talking just of Disney, but that supposed solid advice we got from our parents, teachers and just about anyone who seemed competent about finding the career path, marriage and the answer to life.

“Do these things and your life will be good.”

My friend and I can answer that with, “Well, yeah, but what about cystic fibrosis, major financial upheaval, plain ignorant decisions and silly luck?”

The simple point being, what do you do when the rug's been pulled from under you and you cannot get a “do over.” Add to that, the youth, vigor and enthusiasm you had then is slowly spent day by day.

What I advised him was a bit mercenary, but it's what I believe myself.

There is NO justice in this world I say. You could've been a kid, growing up in an alcoholic home, where Dad routinely molested your sister. You could've been born with some disease that limited your possible growth in life. You could've been born in Venezuela, drinking water leaching out of some mighty, stinking dump. Where you end up, when your born, is no fault of your own. You're given a hand of cards to play and sometimes that hand sucks, or becomes “sucky.”

No matter what may have happened to you, don't expect justice I say. I've never seen it and the only justice would have been to prevent ugly things from happening to you in the first place. Religion? Sure, it's great for the afterlife..but what about now? And isn't that what we all bitch about..is the now?

And since there is no justice, do what you damn well please.

The only caveat, rule to that is don't spread pain. Don't let your desires ruin someone else's day. This is the only moral you need.

As far as do overs are concerned? Sure, you can't wind back the hands of time to regain that youth but guess what, you don't really need it. Didn't get magna cum laude when you were 22 in college? So what, you can attain something now that'll feel close enough to it. Get robbed of a section of your life where you invested in someone that didn't pan out? Well, if your still alive, you can still find someone who will pan out.

Do what you damn well want while your are still drawing breaths.