it is what it is

 Today is the 4th day of the 21st week, the 22nd day of the 5th month, the 143rd day of 2024 [with only 216 shopping days until Christmas], and:

  • Bitcoin Pizza Day - back then bitcoin was all but worthless.  Today the same amount would be a fortune.  An opposite, but related tale - an online friend often accepted micro-payments from one of his customers in bitcoin, and amassed a considerable amount that he then cashed in
  • Canadian Immigrants Day
  • EMS Day
  • Emergency Medical Services for Children Day
  • Harvey Milk Day - and no, it has nothing to do with a beverage 
  • International Being You Day
  • International Day for Biological Diversity
  • National Buy a Musical Instrument Day
  • National Craft Distillery Day
  • National Maritime Day
  • National Solitaire Day
  • National Vanilla Pudding Day
  • NF2 Awareness Day - Neurofibromatosis type 2 
  • Pesach Sheni
  • Sherlock Holmes Day - always celebrated on the birthday of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who did actually write other books, but will always be overshadowed by the world's most famous consulting detective [who's birthday is actually on 01.06.1854] 
  • US Colored Troops Day -  on this day back in 1863, the US War Department issued General Order #143 to recruit black to fight for the Union Army, all of which explains the archaic and rather offensive name of the day 
  • Unity Day - celebrates the formation of the Republic of Yemen in 1990
  • World Goth Day
  • World Paloma Day
  •  and Voyage I is 46 Yrs 08 Mos 17 Days, and 15,132,152,595 mi/24,352,846,525 km/162.78872428 AU, from the Earth

Quote of the day:
"When in doubt tell the truth."
~ Mark Twain


Grandmom Hughes and I used to get into many philosophical conversations.  Sometimes they became quite animated, sometimes we both would get angry, sometimes we would even yell at each other, but there was only one time that I genuinely upset her - and she never forgot it.

The subject came up, I know not how, about whether or not we would go back and live our lives over again.

Grandmom stated without hesitation that she would do it all again just as it was.   That was a powerful statement because she had lived through the Spanish flu killing off her parents and had to go to work at the age of 14, and had managed to keep a family fed and in their house during the Depression.  I, on the other hand, most emphatically did not want to go back, and even after she questioned that conviction, stuck by the statement that once was enough, and it didn't make sense to revisit all the traumas and mistakes of the past.  Grandmom was dismayed to the point of tears that I didn't feel the joys of my life outweighed the negatives. 

The idea of going back is something that I have pondered more than once, succumbing to the lure of the road not taken.  Peggy Sue Got Married is a movie I have watched a couple of times, and Tapestry is one of my favorite STNG episodes.  My own life has had many irrevocable choices, but the first of which I identified was when I left my mother's home that night in tears [after an argument about doing dishes that got as nasty as arguments with my mother always didand went to Bob's apartment.   If I had gone to Grandmom Hughes' house instead....     I  [more than likely given his ability to alienate my family and friends] never would've ended up marrying Bob, which means I never would've had my son, never would've gone to Alaska and had a disastrous affair, never would've ended up marrying Chuck, never would've had my daughter, never would've worked at Mother Goose, never would've met Frank....

Would I undo all that?   Become a totally different person?  And wipe my children and grandchildren out of existence, and lose Frank, Frank's kids, Frank's grandson, and my son-in-law from my life?  

No.

When I was young, I thought adults had mastery of their fates, that they ended up in the places they wanted to be because they planned to be there.  Life has taught me differently. 


Sorry Grandmom.  I am still unwilling to ge back and live it all over again, but I do not wish to go back and change anything either.  Does that help?

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