Closing the Book, Saying Goodbye, and Killing It

             This is a thoughtful piece; however I think it will have a ton of pop-culture references in it. Brace yourself.

             Hitting your forties is special.  You know you are mathematically and undeniably middle aged, and you know that you’ve probably passed the point in your life where you were the most virile and vital.  However, if you are a thinking person, you also acquire the ability to let shit go.  I think your forties are the proving years to see whether you can age gracefully or become a bitter, angry, sad asshole.

             I’ve felt this a lot lately, and a fun way to measure these events as you get older is to acknowledge the small endings you have in your daily life.  They start early.  The end of high school and college or the end of a job that you won’t soon forget.  There are friendships that fade away and breakups, too.  Another one is to acknowledge the ending of stories in your life.  Some people feel it when a favorite musician dies, and you know that you will never hear anything new from them ever again.  The same thing with actors, writers and filmmakers. Sue Grafton died before she finished her Z book.  (That must drive OCD people insane.)

             There have been a bunch of story endings for me in the last year.  Game of Thrones, Avengers, Star Wars, Mr. Robot, The Good Place… I think there are a few more, too.  It is bittersweet to see it end, but the feeling that comes after is so important, even when it’s just entertainment we should acknowledge it.  Endings are such a major part of life and a real teacher of how strong we are.  We need to have things so we will know that next morning the sun will rise, and we’ll be just fine.

             My kids aren’t kids anymore and now I’m the old guy that raised them.  My hair isn’t coming back. All the shit I like has been forgotten, trivialized, or banished to an oldies bin of culture.  I have hundreds of open-ended arguments in my head that will never be resolved.  I have a few dozen dreams that I know will never happen.  Clinging to them is painful.  It’s not the dreams’ fault.  It’s the clinging.

             I have had important people in my life that I will never see again, and for some it is a sure thing.  You have to let them go.  I do not light candles for departed loved ones.  If they truly meant something to you, there is no way you will ever forget them.  Behaving as if they are actually part of your life right now, today, is clinging, and clinging only hurts you.  Their memory can dissolve and become part of your blood flow, your conscience, your morality.  That is the best you can hope for as a memorial.  That way, when you think of them, what comes up first is how knowing them also benefitted you.  They have become inexorable from you.  To know who you are, is to know them, too.

             Killing your past was a theme in the last two epic space movies I watched in the theater.  This is a tough one.  Killing the past in totality is impossible and stupid. However, strategically targeting can be helpful.  If you approach it like a surgeon who removes a tumor, then I think you’re on the right path.  Those memories of screw-ups and evil deeds that you’ve atoned for but still plague you…kill ‘em.  Those truly devastating and embarrassing moments you remember that still make you sick to your stomach…kill ‘em.  Those shitty people who betrayed you or fucked you over…kill ‘em.  Well, not them, but they should spend a lot less time occupying brain space.  Learn the required lesson and close that book.  Trust me, they aren’t thinking about you.

             Doesn’t it seem that a significant part of this country can’t let go of things?  They cling to the good ol’ days, whatever they think they were, and they can’t stand the fact that deep down they know they aren’t ever coming back. Refusing to adapt and change goes against the basic tenets of nature.  No change means no growth.  No growth means… Well, it’s nothing good.

They aren’t even pining for a time or place, they just mourn the illusion of it.  Everything changes, people die, and nothing lasts forever. These are things we figured out eons ago yet there are millions of Americans that believe they are immune.  Time and civilization only move in one direction.  Forward.

Close the old books and say goodbye.  You’ll be okay.  I don’t have to promise this.  It happens billions of times a day.