Beating on, into our Past

My wonderful step-dad left me a comment about” The Great Gatsby” that I thought I would talk about today. There isn’t much going on, and when that happens I like to ponder on something a little deeper than the errands I have to run and cleaning up puke.  He said that he loves the last line of “The Great Gatsby” and that it’s one of the greatest novels ever written.  To him it asks the question “How far can you go without losing yourself” and I agree.  The last line of the book is this:

“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” 

It’s a great line and one that sums up the whole book very well.  When I read that line it made me think about what stupid bastards we are sometimes and how we struggle with so many issues that have to do with our past instead of truly diving into the future.  And most of our decisions, whether we’ve learned from our past or not, in some way or another are manipulated by our past.  We go into our future with great regard to our past experiences.  Sometimes it’s a good thing, but sometimes we make very stupid decisions based on things that have already happened to us.  The thing that sucks about it is that it’s almost unavoidable, almost.  You can make a decision to let go but it takes work.  For me, I lived a life of wanting one thing—a family and a house filled with kids.  There was just one problem…..I was terrified of marriage.  The entire institution scared the crap out of me.  I watched divorce after divorce, and although my parents didn’t intentionally make me an un-believer, that’s what happened.  I remember that when I met Don I wasn’t scared anymore.  I was still scared of the institution when I met him, but I wasn’t scared if I entered it with him.  But I will never forget this…..about a week after meeting him I was driving in my car and I remember feeling terrified and I was thinking “What are you doing?  You can’t be in love with someone, you’ll only get hurt.  It’ll only end.  What are you doing?”  And for about 30 seconds I was scared.  My past was creeping up my leg, wrapping around me like a poisonous snake.  I thought to myself “But it’s Don.”  And the snake retreated.  I told myself that I wasn’t going to allow my parents’ mistakes control my future.  And I wasn’t scared again from that moment on.  I think about how on one hand, I didn’t allow my past experiences (going through painful divorces) control my future, but on the other hand it does.  I wake up every day knowing that staying happily married and keeping my family together until I die is the most important thing to me.  I know who I am, and I know exactly why I wake up every day feeling so strongly……it’s because of my past. 

Gatsby planned his entire future on getting a girl back.  He became everything that she wanted and in the end, it killed him.  He couldn’t have predicted it killilng him, just like we can’t predict it killing us.  If we build our future based on the past, or even if we keep looking back, we’re sure to kill ourselves and ruin our present and our future. 

I want to end this entry by telling you about something that made me cry last night.  I was watching “What Would You Do” and although I always either get angry or tear up, I was really moved last night.  Here’s the scenario:  It takes place in a restaurant.  A white couple adopting a baby was upset and crying about the teenage girl changing her mind and refusing to give the baby to them.  The teenage girl and the man leave the table and the woman stays behind.  She is obviously distraught when two strangers, African-American women, walk over to the woman and comfort her.  They pray with her.  They pray for her to have a baby, they pray for strength, etc.  Finally John Quinones comes out and talks with the women.  It turns out that one of them works for Unisef in Africa and that’s why she responds the way that she does—she’s a humanitarian every day.  The woman says something so beautiful, I have to share it.  She says “If I bleed, it comes out red.  If she bleeds, it comes out red.  And all tears are salty.”  I know that it’s so obvious, but I just thought that it was so beautiful.  I guess what really got me is that they weren't just words coming out of her mouth.  She lives her life truly believing that we’re all equal.  We should all remember that.

I think that I woke up earlier than the dudes at Dictionary.com, so there's no Word of the Day today.  It comes in later on the weekends for some reason.  Have a great Saturday!  I'm off to Pilates!