My early childhood is a distant mist, but I remember the sounds of laughing children mixed with intense moments of sadness and wonder. It was a normal childhood in many senses where I suffered the usual childhood pains and troubles – bullies, heartbreak, and the loss of loved ones. Yet it was a life that I was born into, as are many others, and I look back with indifference and confusion because there were no other childhoods I have to compare. It was my first life.
My late
teenage years and early 20s were occasions for soul searching, weighing my skills and desires
and finding a path of sure footing, yet it was jagged and rocky and I groped in
the dark even as I found great joy in the work. I graduated from a prestigious
university, but it felt like a premature beginning, and the first wave of
emptiness and confusion I buried in church, a marriage, a budding family, and a
new teaching career. It was the way I felt the world was supposed to happen,
and it was my second life.
My adult
years were programmed for me, a strong religious routine filled me with all the
truth I needed even though I could not put my finger on why it was never
enough. Even as I believed that all things would work together for good, I
never felt fulfilled so I immersed myself in knowledge and guilt and I played
the part of the perfect husband and father for many years, until one day it all
came crashing down. Yet I had a hand in the crash, and I knowingly and willingly
sent myself reeling as I found my next adventure. Thus ended my third life.
My middle-age years were a time of great freedom and even greater struggle. I set up the
goal of becoming a professor, and my eyes focused on the belief that it would
happen, while never really believing it would. As I grew into a man for the
first time, I found love in the most unpredictable place. But it has sustained
me all these years and led me head first into the completion of my degree, my
career, and my new-found identity as a professor. For the next 8 years, this
was my fourth life.
My soul
searched for meaning and completion to a lifelong career goal as we moved to a dry
and dusty land to seek great fortunes and the promise of tenure. Along the way,
I made more friends, always keeping arms length, while knowing deep down it
would never last. I had dreams of great triumph and building on my skills in leadership.
And they were partially fulfilled, but that time also came to an end. When I knew
this adventure was almost over, I started developing plans for a unique, and
untested, enterprise. Thus ended my fifth life.
My next life
was the shortest of them all, as I faced the prospect of cashing in my chips, retiring,
and building a business to hawk my products of knowledge. I was a dreamy and
short-lived adventure, but the realization sunk in that it would be harder than
I thought, and also that I was not ready to move on…to call it a day and pass
the crown on to the next generation. So that life, my sixth one, was put on hold,
but it is not dead just yet. I am likely to return to it in some future
universe.
My next life
is the one in which I am currently immersed; one where I dove in head first
without much contemplation. Rusty though I am, I know I have the skills to teach, so
I am simply revisiting my third life, but with a new set of skills and wisdom that
I never had in those early days. I am more self-sufficient, less religious, yet
more contemplative in my thoughts and more aware of my skill set. Now the alarm
rings early and I brandish wisdom as my weapon of choice as I lead another generation
of youth into their own grownup adventures, hopefully passing my knowledge along to
them to use it as they may. I now tackle this familiar and daunting field of
play with guarded confidence. As I begin this seventh life, I will make and
mold it into what it was meant to be.
My next few
lives are yet to be shown to me and to the world. This seventh one may be the
hardest of all, yet there are many more lives to live, and I want to live them
all.
