in flux

To laugh often and love much; to win the respect of intelligent persons and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest citizens and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to give of one's self; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to have played and laughed with enthusiasm and sung with exultation; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived... this is to have succeeded
-often attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson

I have had an attractively scripted version of that quote sitting prominently in my ever-changing office space for the last eight or so years. I think it's scrolled on the back of a lonely box lid removed from a small boxed collection of blank note cards, but I don't really recall. With all of the change occurring in myself and my life right now, I found myself pondering it a little bit longer as I was starting the process of boxing up my collected life into what turns out to be predominantly empty liquor boxes.

A major chapter in my life has ceased and I am currently segueing to whatever is next. There were times along the way that packing up only the 'house burning down' treasures and necessities seemed the way to go, but the clock's ticking has slowed its cadence some. Life throws so many logistics and formalities into the mix such that moving on to what's next tends to be sluggish at best, even as one's emotional and psychological state rushes many miles ahead. I'm running, I'm running - catch up with me life, goes an unexpectedly apropos verse from Nelly Furtado's "I'm Like a Bird".

In times like these I find myself hearing kernels of useful information, guidance, and advisement all around, especially now since I am feeling much more attuned and aware of the present moment. I like to bat around the term synchronicity. Lately things have gotten to the point that I feel this single month of drastic change has felt like a far longer stretch. There is a new intoxication in being alive that I didn't expect. I know the whole sea change and novelty scenario will batter me in myriad ways, but for right now I am accepting the challenge of whatever is next.

Nonetheless, it doesn't make sifting through mutually collected trinkets and such to find reasonable, even splits any easier. There's a highly surreal nature to the whole business of uncoupling that automatically suggests incompleteness, at least in terms of possessions - such as going from a complete Tori Amos Cd collection to a partial, say. It's certainly not what's important, but it's what is concrete. Much harder is wondering whether or not the individuals in a relationship have 'succeeded' by Emerson's definition. I don't think an end means failure. I think what matters most is what happens next. I have always been a hopeless romantic, but I have always understood there would always be another day after the ship sailed off into the sunset. For every Before Sunrise there's bound to be a Before Sunset. It's about balance.