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White Feather

I had one of those “Forrest Gump” moments the other day. I was sitting in my car and noticed a small white feather in the corner of my windshield. If you recall from the movie, the white feather was the device used to connect the beginning of the movie with the end, to remind us that life is just like that feather – floating around and touching the lives of those who need it.

There’s a randomness to life that I haven’t yet been able to explain but as my mother used to say “there are just some things in life you can’t explain”.

Sometimes you just have to go around your life and deal with what happens. Sometimes you have control over your situation, sometimes you don’t. In either case, you tend to do what you think is best for the situation.

There are people that I have run across in this life that have the ‘need’ to believe something. They have to have faith in something or they feel their life is missing something. I guess I’ve never been that kind of person. I never felt like could ever be addicted to anything. I also never felt like I was overly passionate about anything.

Looking back, I find there are a lot of things I would probably still have in my life if I had been a bit more passionate about them. I think maybe a few more women would have stayed around.

When I was younger, I always figured I’d have a wife and 2 or 3 kids, working a crappy job and feeling miserable about my life in general. You know the guy – the “Cat’s In The Cradle” guy who’s too tired to play with his kids when he comes home and doesn’t have quite enough money to pay the bills.

What happened was that I never found a wife (meaning: no children) and I never got that house in the suburbs with the minivan in the driveway. Okay, I actually did get the house in the suburbs but it’s not the same for a single man. Usually single people are in apartments or condos where they can co-mingle and go to parties.

Right now I live next to a young married couple on one side, and a typical African American family on the other side of me. I guess it’s good because I don’t have a problem with either of my neighbors. We have that ‘waving hello’ relationship. That’s pretty much all we do when we see one another.

So we wake up in the morning, eat some breakfast, shower, shave, shine, drive to work, work, eat lunch at some point, work some more, drive home in traffic, eat dinner, watch some TV and go to sleep. In between all that, we have to somehow live our lives. John Lennon said, “Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans”. I say “life is what happens to you whether you like it or not”. There’s always going to be a time when you feel like there will be no tomorrow and always be a time when you feel bulletproof.

I can qualify that further and exclude the day you were married and the birth of any children – you can’t count those because they’re too easy. We all have highs and we all have lows. A lot of life is struggling to reduce the lows and prolong the highs (naturally, mind you).

I have to go now, there’s a feather floating above my head. I have to vacuum it up before it hits the floor.

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