My Birthday

My birthday: 

today draws me a bit more towards self-reflection, being my birthday, and maybe it's my age that brings me to look back and see things bittersweet, a past tinged with a certain sadness, a person mostly lost, wandering, and where this leads me now. Viewed through some metrics, society largely, my life has been largely unsuccessful, no real career to speak of, just low to mid management positions of retail, nothing that ever truly satisfied my spirit and barely paid the bills. My heart belonged to writing, drawn towards meditation and quiet contemplation while roaming trails through nature. I was a mystic in a busy world, but of course I didn't know this - the only thing I knew was feeling misplaced, not belonging, and being afraid of disappointing those I loved. 

it's odd how a slightly shift of focus changes the view, maybe just bit, yet it's enough to bring the world in focus. I was never really meant for a career, not the kind that's expected. Maybe none of us are meant for anything, or at least nothing specific and it's all a matter of luck and compromise, that by some good fortune a happy few find exactly what they're called to do, dharma perhaps, and that others settle for a path that simply occupies their time, pays well, and provides them some time away to truly feel alive. None of these seemed to be my option, so a wandered, different jobs, relationships, pursuing things that might might fulfill a passion but never quite being anything more than an interesting hobby. 

through the years of been a long distance hiker, an ultrarunner, many kinds of endurance athlete as well as training for strength events. My life has been very physical, it still is, I feel happiest when expressed as motion. Just as much, I'm called to stillness, the quietness of early morning meditation, a life given to spirit and writing of the soft, subtle things that seem to touch me deeply. I'm happy with this contradiction, a soul fully expressed through every means of living, motion and stillness truly being seen as one, not opposites, but simply life through all it offers. 

viewed as such...I've successfully been alive. 

happily so. 

so it's my birthday, I'm 58, and with a little self-reflection I see every shifting view, how my life plays out through the lens motion and stillness, how my feelings of being lost and not belonging have led to my surrender of every view that's held. The truth is, I've always, only, simply been alive, an aspect of life itself expressed in the sure exactness of all I've ever been and who I am right now. Nothing is wrong with my life, it's simply being displayed through infinite possibilities, and shows me as a seamless part of its expression. It's not about success or failure, it never has been, my dharma has always been to be alive, full of curiosity and wonder, exploring the world through the holiness of mystery. 

on my birthday, 

another moment to be alive, fulfilling my dharma...

happily so. 

~

Peace, Eric