Second Life

This calls for a mind, with understanding...

I almost didn’t die. I laughed when I first typed this, as a writer, I liked the way it sounded though it was the wrong way to say what I meant.  

Of course it’s one of those things that makes it sounds like I did but almost didn’t when what I really meant was - obviously I didn’t die, and was never in real danger, but there were times I sure did feel like something was happening.

I was afraid.

What it should have said was I didn’t almost die, but I’ve learned as a writer to not always jump back and edit what I originally wrote because there’s something to leaving it as it first came out.

Trust in the invisible writer, the spirit, the truth poured out.

This is the Second Life.

Maybe it’s more than that but again as a writer I like the way it sounds.

It’s my life again.

There’s been so many questions lately from me for me about me.

What now?

Is this is?

This is the legacy?

Is this what life equals?

I feel, young.

My life feels like it has been handed back to me. Delivered.

It’s an interesting point to have because I know that people go around thinking that they own their own lives - but do they?

I think that was the source of my frustration lately, as I get taken into an office to get a talking to and another prior one that says, hey we redefined what you’re going to do, and oh by the way - you failed.

For most people, and in this case I am not including myself in this, tend to accept what their job says about them to define them as to what they are.

Their self-worth is tied to what a title says about them.

Try it, ask someone who they are, and barring strangers that might look at you funny and move away from you, some will start with their name, and then a profession.

Ugh. This will make my wife laugh when she reads this…

In the trailer for the movie (from the book of the same title by John Green) The Fault in our Stars, Augustus Waters asks his new friend Hazel Grace Lancaster what her story is, and she starts to respond in this very same fashion - she identifies herself with how she see’s herself, what someone has told her she is - a diagnosis, and thank you Augustus (John Green) he stops her and says, No, no, no, your real story.

That’s what i’m talking about here.

The real story.

You see, Saturday the wife and I went downtown, sat out and ate and had fun, then went to see Godzilla stomp out San Francisco and giant bugs.

Soon after getting home though I felt really really sick, in fact sick like I have not felt in i’d say close to 20+ some years and for the reading audience I’m gonna spare you all the gory details of what this meant for me all night except that I can tell you for sure that I saw, 1 AM, 2 AM, 3 AM, 5 AM and then could not sleep past 7.

The pain in my lower back - where my mind went to was right over my kidneys, was horrible.

I am blessed with a wife that said, No, you are not going to try and lay down, you are going to go and get checked out.

Thank you honey.

And so I got checked out, for something like 6 hours. A lot of tests, blood and otherwise, x-rays, speculations, 3 bags of IV fluid since I was really dehydrated (because of the gory details I left out).

At one point the doctor is outside the sheet that is THE WALL, and he says, “His white blood count is twice what it should be and we don’t know why.”

I don’t care who you are, that doesn't sound good.

And by the way doc - those sheet separator walls? They aren't soundproof.

***

When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 1 Corinthians 13:11

When you’re a kid you are told that there are certain things that are important. I remember in High Geometry, this gal named Christina (I think) raised her hand and asked Mr Easterday’s back, “Excuse me Mr. Easterday, why do we need to know this?”

He replied that it would come in handy if she were going to be building and or designing bridges etc. Very true of him to say so but in his answer he gave her the out.

“I’m not going to be building or building or designing bridges, i’m going to be just balancing my checkbook.”

Chrissy got a good laugh from all of us and an exasperated look from Mr. E.

But there is truth here.

We get told that there are certain things that are absolutely needed and true and that by golly we better do those things, or guess what, you’ll be fired and or worse! Deemed a failure.

My life is my own. Scripturally it says it is not my own, but that is not to say that I can hand it over to others to treat it irresponsibly or have them deem what it is worth in title and or compensation.

The difference being that my life is to be used as a servant, not a scapegoat, for if I allow it as such, then I am the one being irresponsible with it.

Borrowed from another article that some may recall - “When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

The cause which impels separation is truth.

You are not what someone else tells you you are.

My life is my own, and though I am not making any immediate environmental changes, I am standing on my declaration that I am more than what someone else may say I am because when it comes down to it, I want the people that remember me to remember me for something that matters and the things that matter need to be amenable to all parties not just the ones that feel entitled to tell you what to do (and what you are).

What are the things I want to be known for?

Trust me, when a doctor and his staff visit with your family just beyond a non-soundproof sheet saying they don’t know what it is and they’re going to take x-rays to see if they can find anything it really puts life into perspective.

I was afraid. Judging by where the pain was I truly thought something had happened to my kidneys, the pain there was as I have mentioned, horrible, and I expected the news to only confirm that.

I have learned in life it is good to stop and examine one’s life and see where it is and determine what is going on, because when God wants your attention, He wants your attention, there are things to be learned in every exercise.

Every ship has a tiller and a journey. Every man as well.

Test’s all came back, and everything is fine.

Amen and amen.