Suzannah and I created a fun little tradition, last leap year: we celebrated, ate good food, spent some quality time together, and wrote notes to our future selves, to be opened next leap year. It was really cool, hearing about where I was, 4 years ago. I wasn't even married yet! Some of my predictions for what life would be like now came true, or are in process. Some didn't at all. But 4 years is enough time for things to have changed quite a lot. I moved to Texas and then moved back, in that amount of time. I switched career paths.
And what about the next 4 years? If things go according to plan, I'll be working as a counselor by then, and have at least one kid. Maybe two! So much could happen, but the future is uncertain. What will be going on with AI? With climate change? Will I finally be doing work I love? How will I be handling being a father? Will things work out or will there be surprising twists and turns?
A lot of people I know are having a really rough time these days, and my heart goes out to them. Just as easily, it could be me. I think we all take turns, going through the rough patches. What I want to do now, when it's a relatively smooth patch, is work on myself and my systems, so that I have strength and good habits of thought and action, when the rough patches hit. Also, to support those in my life, who are going through those rough patches. I feel like that happens with Suzannah; we take turns having challenging times, so the other person can support the one going through the roughness. Perhaps it works like that in our close social networks as well.
Leap year day. It's special, having this one day that only comes every four years. An excuse to step outside the ordinary and reflect over a larger time period. Looking even further back, I feel so much gratitude for how far I've come, how much better I'm doing than many years ago. And yet, now I'm begining to feel the other side of things: I'm already almost 40, and it seems a shame, that it's taken me this long to get my life together. How many of those years in my physical prime, were wasted on me being unhappy? Youth should be for the old and the very young, or just in general, for people who know how to appreciate life.
But in any case, I can at least appreciate and savor life now. I feel deep gratitude for the setting yellow sunlight playing accross my office and shrine, for still sleeping tree's moving in the wind, for the birdsong in the morning, and for this moment of peace and beauty I get to share with you right now.
Be well, take care of each other, enjoy beauty and love where you can find it,
-Isaac
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