Friday, September 30, 2016

September 29: Hair

Petty loss edition.

I love my hair color.  It's a variegated chestnut with hints of red, the kind of hair other people coax from the bottle.  But in just a few short years, I'll start to go gray, and a few years after that, bald.  And I'm acutely aware of all the years I wasted wishing my hair were not my hair.

I'm dwelling on this to escape the other, far greater losses barreling down the track.

Sunday, September 18, 2016

September 18: Discomfort

Why wouldn't you try to sing the hymns? 

Friday, September 16, 2016

September 15: 3/4 of the year gone.

The older I get, the more I understand broken-heartedness to be the human condition.

To be alive is to endure heartbreak after heartbreak, some petty, some bone-deep, some clean, some shattering.  We are heartbroken by what we have done and by what we have left undone.  We break and are broken in turn.

I will never ski. 
The father I knew is gone. 
My son is growing up. 
There are no more rotary telephones. 

If I have broken your heart, I am sorry; you have probably broken mine.