"The unexamined life is not worth living" Socrates

- - scatterings of ideas sent to my younger self, a sensitive girl who was fooled into believing she was a boy because of anatomy - -

Friday 25 January 2013

Living in the Present

It occurred to me this morning that I have gained a personal insight into something my grandfather told me a long time ago. 

He was quite the wit. At their sixtieth wedding anniversary party, sitting together hand in hand a family member asked my grandparents how they had stayed together for so long. Without a beat, Grandad replied, "Get married young, stay together and live a long time."

Those words of his were not the ones on my mind today though. 

When he was into his nineties, with my grandmother dead for a few years, he observed as many do at that age that the hardest part of living a long life was being left as your friends and family pass on. He explained it wasn't just loneliness he felt though. It was a lack of connection to the present. There was nobody in his life who had been with him on the whole journey. That meant that any meaningful conversation had to begin with explanations of who he had been, and what things were like then, to give context to the conversation. Of course, what he needed to do was make new friends and create new contexts, yet that meant abandoning all those rambling, pleasant thoughts of who he had been (who wants to listen to some old guy ramble about that sort of thing?) and trying to find and maintain new relationships using current events and contexts. 

Not old enough to be in that position, still I know how he felt; lonely and disconnected from the present. Daily life has become superficial. How can I feel truly connected to people who don't really know me? How can one talk about feelings or even ideas without explaining where you are coming from. Like Grandad felt and told me, it's silly explaining stuff nobody wants to hear at any rate.


A long time ago, I stated a goal (what part of me is goal oriented do you think?) ~ to be as true as possible to my feminine nature, while presenting as a male

Back in those days, a lot of what I was feeling (what part of me do you think that was?) was the need to live true to myself

Recently it seems the goal has been reached.
Be careful what you wish for. 
Being content is not the same as being happy.

I am not convinced that I am living true to myself. 

3 comments:

  1. "How can I feel truly connected to people who don't really know me? How can one talk about feelings or even ideas without explaining where you are coming from."

    When you have lived a lie your whole life, as I felt I had to, can leave you biter and twisted inside. Everyone has to make compromises but few are ever called upon to compromise their soul to the extent that they can never speak openly and honestly to anyone they know.

    If you have found a better compromise than you had I an happy for you.

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    1. I had hardly hit "PUBLISH" than it dawned on my poor little pea-brain that no matter what course I had followed for the past four years, I would have been feeling the same way to some extent.
      My wish to you as well Caroline, to feel your present path has been the very best you can have hoped for.

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  2. I hesitated far far too long.

    I thought that transition would bring on more pain and suffering than the status quo, I was so stupid, I was so wrong!

    Now I am in a better place than I ever thought possible though my path was long and zigzagged I have somehow made it, better late than never...

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