She’s my trouble… What to do

 Is what I’d like my epitaph to read.

So, when the children were young, they’d listen to music not conducive to the prescribed norm and when Rod Stewart belted out Van Morrison’s ,"Have I told you lately that I Love You"… a 3 year old Alder would chime along and end with “She’s my trouble… what to do” in parody of “Ease my troubles… that’s what you do” and glance at me meaningfully.

Was for me an avowal. Trouble is everlasting. Good times are fleeting. Now call me out on this. Please. I dare you.

Like the year this is. Jeez, we’ve been lamenting about the misery and the misfortune and doomsday blah blah. Call me out on this. I dare you.

Cut the crap. Really. We’re alive, every breath we take is a testament to the fact that we’re still kicking. Our ability to ‘function’ as ‘normal’ is impaired. Our grand plans are stalled. We’ve lost loved ones. Lost vocations, vacations and ill-advised fornications. Lost our means for living. Lost avenues for loving. Our ship seems rudderless. Our flights (more of grandiose and fancy) are grounded.

Yet I’m here penning this and you’re here reading this.

More than a little tired of the lamentations, doomsday conspiracy theorists, religious nuts, conformists, rebels, fatalists, and pessimists. A lot more than a little actually.

Yes the year has been a challenge but excuse me, who exactly declared that one is ‘entitled’ to a life that’s sans strife and curve balls?

The measure of a fulfilled life is how one battles on despite the bellows of the Taurus or the gauge of a cannon or even the lure of a mermaid.

We’re dished out infested broth, worse than served at Guantanamo Bay. From hangovers of a miserable childhood to relationships that crippled us to circumstances that stunt us to careers that impaled us. Yeah, it happened. Unfortunate, unwarranted, unforgivable. Like this year, 2020.

Choices… choices on how to process them.

If one believes that we’re here for the long haul and that it’s peachy cream all the way, time to swallow the BS?

Stock check time, Christmas is… for me.

Despite all the vagaries of the current environment and its uncertainties I’d like to believe this has been a year that was bloody brutal yet hauntingly authentic. Of acceptance, elevation and zen. To that which is stronger than self. To the fears that surfaced and made us question our mortality, self-importance, impotence and incompetence.

End this soppy outpouring on a positive, placating note?  Nopes.

 In 1949, J. E. Lawrence in the Nebraska State Journal said:

"New land is harsh, and vigorous, and sturdy. It scorns evidence of weakness. There is nothing of sham or hypocrisy in it. It is what it is, without an apology."

Suck it up and swallow.

Sniff while you’re at it.

Smile too.

Pleasurable really.

This life… she’s my trouble… What to do!