The Twists of Fate

When my son was fourteen, one summer he fell into his first real crush with another fourteen-year-old visiting her cousins from another city far away. When he wasn’t at one of his summer jobs he was at the beach with them. On the morning in late August this girl left to go home, she gave him her scarf. A few months later he told me their letters had lasted as long as the scent of her hair in that scarf and he had to accept that there was no future with her. He was fourteen and she was 100 miles away. That may have been the summer her was no longer a boy.

He actually came to me and said he wanted to talk about why he felt the way he did when they were together and why he felt the way he did now. He was in pretty rough shape. I'd had a fair amount of experience with relationships I wanted to keep but they didn't last. We sat down on the patio and I summoned up what I thought was one of my better dad talks about the times I was really in love and about some of my decisions. It went something like this...

Son, you see, when you’re in love and that love is returned, like the Coldplay song, it feels like you rule the world. It’s difficult to find the words to describe how you’ll feel when that’s taken away. It’s not only painful, it’s likely it’s going to happen more than once and it will feel that way every time. Each time it happened in my life I was back there again, twenty one-years-old in my ’59 Chevy on that dark, cold and icy highway in the Midwest after Lois told me she’s decided we should see other people. After three years. The woman I was going to marry.  

It happened again twice in the coming years in relationships most people would never have considered with Lana who was married or Dyan, not married but involved with someone. Why get involved with women in such complicated circumstances. Me? I don’t know but when I am hit by the ‘thunderbolt’, that’s it. I knew it was going to be rare and it actually is rare. And they were hit by the ‘Thunderbolt’ too. I couldn’t settle for anything less. Is she married or involved in complicated circumstances but wanting to change those circumstances? These are minor short term obstacles.

Very little in life, at least in my life, that’s worthwhile, has been easy or uncomplicated. I knew what I wanted. I was looking for more than a friend, more than just acceptable. If a woman was involved or married, there had to be some reason to believe that her relationship was ending or I wouldn’t have been interested and neither would she. I’ve known many attractive, interesting women in strong relationships like Lydia and Nicole but I never gave getting involved a second thought. Well, maybe once or twice but they were just thoughts.

I was looking for intensity, someone with fire and the substance to make an interesting lifelong companion and friend. I’m looking for someone with a sense of humor and be a good mother for our children, intellectually curious, at least a little, and, especially, free of the pointless jealousy that comes from insecurity. And just as important, I’m looking for someone who feels the same way about me. And why not? It hasn’t been unrealistic so far. Man or woman, those special people are out there. I am finding that woman but there have been those, you might say, complications. 

It’s only natural that as I approached and passed the age of thirty, some of the women I’m meeting are involved with someone, even married. But sometimes it was obvious they weren’t going to be unavailable for long. Heaven knows son, we all make mistakes.

I wouldn’t want to trade places with some of the married couples I knew. I wasn’t in so much of a hurry that I was going to settle for less than what I needed and wanted. If I had learned anything, I knew this woman was out there. I wanted to rule the world again.

Some good, some not so good and some great women pass through my life in the years after Lois. I still want to be married and have a family though I realize that to some observers, in particular my parents and my sisters, it didn't always seem that way. Many of the women I met bring either fire but no substance or substance but no fire. Or, what originally attracted me to someone turned out to be all there was. Then, there are some with both but need medication. The problem is, fire may present itself up front but the presence or absence of substance or the need for medication, don’t always make themselves known in time to avoid getting involved.

In the title song from the Eagles album ‘One of These Nights’,

Glenn Frey and Don Henley wrote: 

“I’ve been searching for the daughter of the devil himself,

I’ve been searching for an angel in white,

I’ve been waiting for a woman who’s a little of both,

I can feel her but she’s nowhere in sight”. 

         Well son, it turns out there are angels in white out there but another type of woman is out there too and she’s a lot of work, not enough of the angel and a little too much of the devil.

          On one of those nights, some years later and still unattached, I was in the Hollywood Hills at the restaurant Yamashiro, the best view of Hollywood and L.A., especially at night, from downtown to the ocean.

          After dinner with some friends, on the deck, looking at the lights of the city out to the horizon I was thinking, she’s out there somewhere. I actually had that conversation with myself. Then I said, it’s only a matter of time until I find her. I probably had my fingers crossed. I was also wondering if my destiny is to continue searching, maybe indefinitely and unsuccessfully, for the love of my life. And then of course, I met your mother. He chuckled and said, the ‘Thunderbolt’ dad? I had to chuckle too, for twenty-two years son, I replied.

But those relationships really started me thinking about those two words: Destiny and Fate. My son asked me what they meant. I told him it’s a concept or a philosophy, a belief many people have about how their lives will turn out. I used to think our destinies were mostly determined by the family and social circumstances we're born into. I told him, for what it’s worth and this is only me, I no longer share that belief. I don’t believe that when we’re born life hands us our destiny along with a social security card. Or, I was put on this earth for this reason or that reason or that our environment always determines the course of our lives. Random House Webster says destiny is “something that is to happen or has happened and the predetermined, usually inevitable or irresistible, course of events”. It is the words “happen,” “predetermined” and “inevitable” where I have a problem. Do we let our lives ‘happen’ to us or do we create and then recreate our lives with our decisions and choices, good or bad, that we make every day? Don’t like you job, get another one. Don’t have the skills for the job you want, get those skills. Don’t like your relationship with your partner, do something about it or set yourself free. I believe our actions can influence, alter, even redefine our futures, our destinies, every day. And ‘predetermined’? Wouldn’t it be depressing to believe that you’re living your life according to a plan or a purpose assigned to you when you were born and all you can do, as it unfolds, is hope it’s a plan you’re going to like, that whoever you are in life and wherever you’re going is inevitable? OK. I know that’s probably not exactly how it works but you get the idea.

         My own life has taught me that every day, as soon as I put my feet on the floor, I have another opportunity to adjust how my life will turn out, not only that day but all the days after. If you believe your adjusting, or the lack of it, is part of your destiny, I guess that’s another way to look at it. Maybe continually seeking the inspiration and being open to the possibility for adjusting can be part of our destiny too.

         And, while we’re on the subject, let’s say there actually is such a thing as a plan for you. Your particular chosen plan could be trying to end world hunger, build houses, grow wheat and corn, heal the sick or repair automobiles. If you’ll permit me, for a rare moment, to cross over a line we should always think twice about crossing (the other one is politics). I believe if there is a plan with a capital P, it’s for you to live your life doing what you love, to live by the Golden Rule, to live a life of service to others, to live the happiest most rewarding life you can, to find the strength to overcome and avoid the temptations and weaknesses of the Dark Side and leave the world a better place through the example you set for your family and friends, and through the descendants you’re proud to send out into the world.

          My son looked a little perplexed. He thought for a moment and said sounds like a pretty good plan dad.

       Then he sat back, nodded, smiled and said, "Thanks pop. I still miss her, but thanks. How about some dinner?"

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