Me Epiphany

It’s been a long time since I was born and I have been thinking a lot about that life I have lived.There are some issues. I received an invitation to attend a self-reflective seminar all the way up in Alaska, Denali Lodge in fact. Sounded like a great idea. Denali, snow, isolation and focus. Maybe I would learn something. I’m going.

I was late. My plane had been delayed at the Seattle International Airport for several hours and we arrived in Anchorage around 7:30—dead of winter. I rushed to the rental car counter and picked up a really nice SUV. That was good. I had been to Denali several years ago and found it to be an inspiring site. I knew the way, off I went.

As I headed east out of Seattle, it start snowing. It was very light and didn’t bother me. Over the course of the next two hours, it steadily grew in intensity and volume. My speed on the highway gradually declined and the snow was putting me to sleep. Suddenly, there was a bridge in front of me and it startled me. I foolishly hit the brakes and started my spin to destiny. One time around, two times around, off the road. I tried to get out of my seat harness, foolishly, and jammed the damn thing. End over end, down the bank, to the Chulitna River, bounced into the sky and landed directly under the bridge. The storm was now a blizzard.

I had hit my head twice on the steering wheel as the truck bounced to the river. My head was bleeding slightly and I was dazed knowing that I was going to die. Such a strange feeling as I looked out at the very dark night, the blizzard and the swollen river. Feeling a loss of consciousness, I sort of passed into a reverie. Somehow, the SUV landed at the bank on the edge of the river and it was upright, stuck in bank out of site from the road and bridge. As I drifted into unconsciousness, I looked back.

All my life I have been me and now I am someone else. I am pretty uncertain about who that person is and I am scared about the future. I was grounded in my previous being and certain of my life of failure. While I can provide a great deal of evidence to support the failure hypothesis and I am shaky in the belief of fundamental change, I am convinced of the fact that this is really who I am. In fact, that other person, who lived for so long, was not really me. This is really me and that other guy was a manifestation of my fears. Now, I wonder if this is just an attempt to reinvent myself or an expression of hope. My other self was forever accompanied by a sense of hopelessness and defeat.

Does it matter? No. This new feeling, new awareness brings with it a great feeling of release. I have come to realize that what I always wanted to be is exactly who I am and that other fellow projected himself from my fears, fed my fears.

I still feel fear. It’s a new fear. When you let go of your anchor, of what stabilized you for years upon years, you have nothing to hold on to. You are alone in the middle of the endless sea of life. You have no anchor, no direction, no support. What you do have, strangely enough, if not hope. I was Fred and now I am Dan, I was Roy and now I am Allen. I am confused.

Well, it turns out that I am not so confused. I am excited and pleased. And, yes, I am scared. I am late in my life and don’t have a lot to time left. I don’t have that youthful feeling of lasting forever, of unlimited possibilities. I mean, you know, the future is so far away I don’t have to think about it. I have lived my entire life that way. Now what?

As I sit here in the middle of the ocean, just sitting on the calm, cool sea, I marvel that I am unafraid, that I am not sinking. I am not exactly unafraid, maybe I am apprehensive. As I look in the distance, I see nothing. Who is going to save me? Who is going to support me? What do I do? Where do I go? Where is the path?

I realize that I am the path. Where I am going to go is inside me. Because I am a survivalist, I have lived from one disappointment to another. Survived. Thanks to my parents, especially my father, I knew that I was bad, incapable, and doomed. Oddly then that I inherited so much talent from my parents. I was always strong, fast, musically talented, and intelligent, quite intelligent. But, I always believed that I would fail.

In all my life, I did one thing well. I married an exceptionally beautiful, talented, graceful woman and we had two beautiful, intelligent, gifted daughters. My family and failure were the two constants in my life. I will never understand why they stood by me, why they loved me and still do. My only explanation is that you can’t define love. Love happens. Your dog gets run over and you realize how much you loved her.

So here I sit in the middle of the ocean, neither dressed nor naked. Alone. Blessed by my family, but alone. I am calm, I am happy. Both of those things are liable to change but at this moment things are still, deep and somehow comforting.

I think back to high school. Not a single kid was shorter than me, no boy nor girl. In grade school there had been one cute little girl who was shorter. We were a natural pair but I wanted no part of it. In high school, there was only one other boy who was faster than me. In basketball, I was a great shooter, in football, no one could catch me or tackle me in the open field. Yet the coaches didn’t want me around. Besides, I was constantly embarrassed by everything. Praised by teachers, sitting in second chair in the clarinet section just on raw talent, scoring high on tests like the IQ test at 156+.

My home life then was miserable as we had no money. My dad lost a good job and couldn’t find another. He was a gambler and an alcoholic (isn’t everybody?). Many, many famous, successful, accomplished people have lived through harsher childhoods than mine. I survived it, just as I survived many near grand successes throughout my life.

Now, I believe that I directed all the failures. It was my nature, it was my destiny. Through many gifts and talents, I would fail. Time and time again. When I was a young man I worked for a very large company and performed well. I received honors and accolades and every single time in front of my peers, I was unbearably embarrassed and my face turned a deep color of red. Many of my male peers took great delight in it.

Anyway, now I can see the pearly gates and the gates to hell. Who knows where I will go? I could easily say that I am sorry for my life, but for some reason I don’t feel that. I have overcome so much and I have been blessed with so many good opportunities even though I couldn’t take advantage of them. It is what it is.

Throughout it all, I was a voracious reader. I read mostly science fiction and fantasy and some literature, like “To Kill a Mockingbird,” “A Tale of Two Cities,” “War and Peace” and other intellectual burdens. I liked what I read although I did find some tiresome.However, I found sci-fi/fantasy to be thrillingly imaginative and consumed with passion for mankind and moral justice. In “I Robot,” Asimov’s first law was “…A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.” In almost every one of the multitudinous novels and stories that I read, that “First Law” seemed to prevail. So, did social justice.

Whether it is escapism or passion or whatever, I live in the novels I read. I don’t necessarily want to be like the protagonist, I just want to be in the story. I do feel the protagonist’s adventures, wins, losses and challenges—all within the safety and comfort of a chair, sofa, or bed. I suspect of experience even though I have read all of the James Bond books and dreamed of being James Bond. However, I have read hundreds of books since and have come to realize that James Bond was an inglorious model.

As I sit calmly on the sea, undulating gently, happy, I think about writing and music. I am a good but immature writer. I used to play clarinet well and am now learning to play guitar, difficult, and ukulele, less difficult. Are those passions? No. Are they paths from this floating position in the sea to the distant horizon. Yes. Do I have to pick one over the other to pursue to success, fame, an glory? No, why do I need success, fame an glory?

When you travel, visit realms, cities and countries that you have always wanted to see, do you have a specific accomplishment goal in mind other than to experience the journey. Not usually. So, as I slowly rise and think about where I am going, I think about passion. I have had two passions in life—playing sports, football, basketball, sailing, tennis, skiing, softball, baseball, cycling, rugby and running. I am disappointed that I was unable to become a professional athlete but I have engaged in all these sports all my life simply because I loved doing them.

The second passion was sex consistent with the James Bond image and the less said about it, the better.

Since I am beyond those passions now, what do I do? I accept my fate and launch myself in a new journey where the journey is the goal, is my life. I don’t have to go in some finite direction with success, money or fame as a goal. I don’t have to select just one endeavor to focus on though the path may lead me there. I have love from and to my wife and children to enjoy, to support me. 

In my reverie, I stand up on the ocean and think, North by Northwest, that’s a good direction and as I journey forward, I will be me.

Imagine the joy I felt when the highway patrolman shook me awake.