BitterSweetLife

I’ve spent the last several days in a post-holiday netherworld. The air here isn't dark enough to be called "blue" nor is it an indeterminate foggy grey. It's more like stormy weather at sunrise, low visibility pierced by glowing fragments. If there was a road sign in this haze, it would read, Welcome to the chronological doldrums. This location, or condition, is brought on by the semi-casual chronicling of the past year, a tabulation of things done and undone. It could be a happy exercise, but just as often, it’s not. There's a melancholy often associated with the year's end. Label it a hangover it you like, but contemplating chronology seems to have this effect on us.

Reviewing a year is a task nearly on par with reviewing a life; as long as you’re alive, perspective is never what it should be. One just makes educated guesses or unschooled stabs, as the case may be, and looks hastily to the future again.

I think the burden of having a life to live weighs on me this time of year—the incredible heaviness of being, I call it—and all the more so when 2004 ended in tragedy for thousands. Being alive implies grave responsibility. That being so, I’ve reconciled myself to the retrospection and introspection such awareness requires. It’s like car maintenance after a road trip.

I’m willing enough to take a glance back over the highways and rural routes I’ve traveled and then spare a glance inside the engine. It may be painful—at the very least it's humbling—but it’s only good sense. Ultimately, though, I realize such tune-ups exert only so much influence over the journey ahead.

Am I headed for the right destination this time? How long will it take me to get there? Did I pack the right stuff? Is my engine what it should be? (Can I afford the fuel?) Should I have arrived already?

Etc., etc. There’s no denying that taking stock of one’s life is sobering. It should be. Thankfully, in the end, I’m willing to acknowledge that every map I tentatively pen out is merely a smudged derivation of the master copy. And this is comforting.