My post this morning is inspired by Jose Gonzalez’ song “Cycling Trivialities”. You can listen to it here on YouTube… http://youtu.be/RknUh1LapJs?list=AL94UKMTqg-9COSk53zABGSE2rVRux8vJn
How often do we spend our lives chasing things over and over in a vicious cycle that has no meaning, that bring nothing into our lives? Insignificance is what steals our joy. But I have to be careful to not discard those things, those hard things, or even those simple things, that have filled my life with meaning. On the surface they may have seemed insignificant, but often held the most importance of all.
I can’t get a quote out of my head that my friend, Sergeant Solano, wrote to me last week. “Just because you do the right things, doesn’t mean you’re right. History determines if you made the right choices, and that great revelation doesn’t come until the end of your life, right before the clarity of regret shows you the light.”
I’m turning 43 this week. It’s not a big deal. I’m not one of those women who shy away from their age. Probably because I feel and look younger, which is also probably why most of my dates tend to be younger than me, too. I suppose I’m just too energetic, too active, with a sense of too much to do for some older man ready to retire and relax. I’ve just got started.
The only thing that makes me apprehensive about my age is knowing the clock is ticking down. I’ve watched 43 years move by me and I’ve done some great and terrible things. I’ve experienced joy and pain. I’ve witnessed horror and beauty. I’ve loved and lost. I’ve laughed and cried. I’ve lived and died. All of it has made me who I am.
Could I have made better choices? Sure. Looking back we can always see where we could have changed our lives, but that’s not how life works. Those bad choices, or bad circumstances, helped make me who I am. I have very few regrets, because I know I’ve mostly lived my life honestly, being me. Fearing bad choices keeps us from making any choice. I can’t live like that – no one can. That’s not living… that’s going around and around in a cycling triviality… and it’s stealing our lives. If I could tell my 23 or 33 year old self what I know now, I could have saved myself a lot of heartache. But then again, I wouldn’t be me.
There are some choices I would love to make, but they’re are not up to me. They involve other people and their free will. I can’t make someone else love me, choose me, or want me. If I could, I’d make the whole world love me. I was loved once, but couldn’t see it because I was busy looking for a dream, a fantasy, an idea - I was searching for a feeling, a magical knowing, chasing a cycling triviality. I couldn't recognize the real thing right in front of me.
We fool ourselves into thinking we know what we want and create this image of perfection in our minds, and quickly dismiss anything that doesn’t fit that fantasy. I got to see real love in front of me in the face of a determined soldier, got to feel the completeness of that love for two whole days, and then he was taken from me. But, even that taught me something very important. The best way I could honor that love is to see myself the way my lost soldier saw me, to love myself with that unwavering love. The way he loved me, never giving up, is the way I choose to love. I think that if he could see me now he’d be so proud of the way I pulled myself out of that darkness and am now putting myself out there. He’d want me to find another love. Perhaps he will be the one to send him my way.
What have I truly learned from my own cycling trivialities? Outward beauty fades, bodies get old, faces get wrinkled, and no one is perfect. Sex is great but has little to do with love. The best things in life are when you touch a soul, stimulate the mind, laugh, see the world with peculiar eyes, notice the light in someone, and understand they’re more than a name, a face - that they matter, that you matter. That’s really all that is important. Everything else can be worked out. How many divorces or failed relationships do we have to experience before we stop the insanity of looking for the same thing over and over and over, yet expecting it all to work out differently? Cycling Trivialities. Let history determine that you lived honestly, openly, and took the biggest gamble of all – to love and be loved.
Lyrics:
Too blind to know your best.
Hurrying through the forks without regrets.
Different now, every step feels like a mile.
All the lights seem to flash and pass you by.
So how's it gonna be.
When it all comes down you're cycling trivialities.
Don't know which way to turn.
Every trifle becoming big concerns.
All this time you were chasing dreams,
without knowing what you wanted them to mean.
So how's it gonna be.
When it all comes down you're cycling trivialities.
So how's it gonna be.
When it all comes down you're cycling trivialities.
Who cares in a hundred years from now.
All the small steps, all your shitty clouds.
Who cares in a hundred years from now.
Who'll remember all the players.
Who'll remember all the clowns.
So how's it gonna be.
When it all comes down you're cycling trivialities.
So what does this really mean.
When it all comes down you're cycling trivialities.
Cycling trivialities.
Cycling trivialities
Till next time,
~T.L. Gray
