Still Learning

Sometimes I miss my younger self. She really didn’t know what she was doing but she also didn’t especially care. She didn’t really think too far ahead of where she was on that day. Frankly? I don’t think she knew to think too far ahead.  Life was so much in the now back then. She muddled along, without direction, maybe a little perplexed, a little unsure, but she figured there was time to figure it all out.  

I think the pace picked up when she became a parent. Then it was no longer just about her.  Now she had committed to a husband and together they had committed to one, and then two, children. Life became more complex. More things to worry about, to sort out, to figure out, to do, to be, to plan for, to be sure about.  

If there was one thing I could tell her, something that she didn’t know then but that I know now, it would be that it all works out.  All of those things that I worried about back then? They all got sorted out. They all came to some resolution.  Despite my fears, they all worked out. Maybe it didn’t go the way I thought it would go, but it did work out. The problem is that as often as I think I have learned that truth, I discover that I am still learning. It’s disappointing. 

That reminds me of this poem by Derek Mahon.

Everything If Going to Be All Right

How should I now be glad to contemplate

the clouds clearing beyond the dormer window

and a high tide reflected on the ceiling?

There will be dying, there will be dying,

but there is no need to go into that.

The poems flow from the hand unbidden

and the hidden source is the watchful heart.

The sun rises in spite of everything 

and the far cities are beautiful and bright.

I lie here in a riot of sunlight

watching the day break and the clouds flying.

Everything is going to be all right.