Lucky 77       

I don’t know…this seems like it should be a ‘lucky’ post, don’t you think? The seventy seventh one?

Not only is it a multiple of 11 (let’s hear it for the 1111 Devotion, folks, the reason we’re all here – or at least the reason I am), it’s also the year I graduated from high school. Which kind of jump-starts me to thinking about my birthday that’s coming up in a couple months.

For some weird reason, I’ve been thinking about it lately. I’ve found myself literally reminding myself that this birthday will be different. Not on the outside. Not with respect to anyone or anything outside of my little old self.

But the very fact of it is already different inside myself.

Approaching 60

It’s strange to think that I’ll be turning 60. Of course, everyone surely feels this way when they get here. And when they continue to be lucky enough to reach further societally-acknowledged milestones. I realize I’m not unique. Unless you count those who don’t reach this number. Or won’t. Ever.

It’s weird for me to think that I’ll be turning twice the age Karl was when he died. I’ve had twice the number of years to experience life, although I am quite confident that he encountered many situations and had a myriad of scares, adventures, and opportunities (for good and for ill) that I may never have (or would never seek out). And that’s true in spite of the fact that I’ve had more than the average bear’s chances to do some wild and crazy shit.

In fact, I sometimes wonder if my willingness to recount some of the adventures I had spurred him on to take some of the chances he did. Probably.

Was My Approach to Life a ‘Contributing Factor?’

And there have been moments, usually when writing in my journal and perhaps reflecting on how I see or perceive other people and how they react and respond to their kids, that I’ve asked myself if my parenting should or could have been a substantial contributing factor to his early death. (Not that I’m saying it was ‘my’ parenting. To be clear, it was (is?) mine and  Karl’s – one thing we strive to always be unified on is our approach to raising our sons.)

What I mean by that ‘contributing factor’ musing is that in listening to others and how they respond to their kids’ dreams and ideas, I’m often genuinely surprised by how outlandish my instinctive responses seem to be in comparison.

I’m all about gathering experiences.

Which is probably why I am so attracted to living a shamanic approach to life – the essence of which is based in one’s own unique experiences.

There were at least a couple of moments in the eleven months that I was in Europe when I was 17-18 years old that I could easily have died. In a few, I could have been killed accidentally. In a couple of others, I was simply lucky that the glint in a few people’s eyes didn’t turn into something deadly. I even knew it in the moment of each occurrence.

Learning Through Experiencing

Knowing I’d been lucky in those times that I surely was, though, didn’t make me swear off adventure or unique opportunities. But I know that that knowing  served to hone my instincts. I distinctly remember realizing that the little niggling edge to the wildness I’d seen in someone’s eyes might next time be a ticket to horror.

A couple of times I knew on some level I’d been given a lucky break. You can’t count on them happening every time. You can’t even count on them happening twice. But you can learn from them. You can reflect on what that situation taught you to avoid next time.

I honestly don’t know where my philosophy of life came from. But I’ve always known I wanted our sons to never say no to an experience simply out of fear. Out of intuitive caution? Yes. An assessment of risk that said in their head and heart, “That’d be dumb?” or “That’s a risk not worth taking?” Yes. But due to generalized fear as a result of other people thinking it was a crazy idea or it was something they wouldn’t do? No way.

I know Karl pushed his edge. I know he did things that pushed the edge of his fear, sometimes going too far and paying the consequences (or getting lucky) and other times because he had thought it through and considered the experience worth the risks. And I know he had stories he wanted to tell me – but was waiting until the ‘right time’ to tell. I regret I’ll never hear them; and I regret he never wrote them down the way I asked him, repeatedly, to do.

Regrets?

There’s the chance, I suppose, that Karl (husband) and I could have tempered Karl (son’s) ambition for adventure. No. That’s incorrect. We could have, possibly, attempted  to temper his ambition for adventure. But I truly believe that if we’d spent our time trying to talk him out of things (or more likely, threatening, cajoling, or forbidding), we would have ended up either repulsing him right out the door without encouraging him to be smart when choosing risks, to use his brains and his instincts and his intuition, or we would have broken his spirit and condemned him to a life of mind-numbing (and illusory) safety.

So no, I guess I don’t regret the way we’ve encouraged our sons to approach and live their lives. And if the way we raised them resulted in Karl living the life he did in his 30 years and dying the way he did? I have to rest in my core belief that a life lived full on, as they say, is a life worth living.

Wow. How did I get to this by beginning with a comment about the number 77?

(T-1034)