Dr. Richard Carlson loves to play a game called “Time Warp…” The goal is to imagine your current world filled with unexpected as well as predictable situations; no matter what your mood, up, down, swung around or right down the center line…the game begins when you ask, “Will this matter a year from now?”
It reminds me of the way I shop for outdoor Christmas decorations. I stand there staring at the giant inflatables for several minutes wondering if eighty bucks for a parachute that’s been shaped to look like a chicken is going to bring out the kid inside fifty two weeks down the holiday slide.
I’ve yet to meet the person that isn’t a sponge. We collect everything emotional while refusing to let it go until something inside the heart or head softly says, “No more.”
The average divorce beats up the human spirit with the golden rule that it takes two years to get over every five years you were together. Now tack on a job that’s heavier than Santa, out of control teenaged kids, neighbors that love to park on their lawn and the pressure of knowing shopping for the holiday this year actually means hitting the convenience store goody counter.
Because I write everyday it’s very easy to go back a year or ten and compare where each toe makes its imprint today versus yesterday. At times I laugh because what I assumed to be extremely important and heart rattling in 1998 is an entire canyon away to the better. In hindsight bosses that caved in dreams were actually incredible coaches that helped push you to a higher level of playing.
A lot of energy has been wasted trying to make me happy and that’s without counting my personal source of power. What we beg borrow and steal from family and friends is no different than holding up a bank. Left in the aftermath of our path is usually a ghost town of haunted memories assumed to be part of the wind until someone at Thanksgiving pops up with, “Hey…whatever happened to?”
Will any of this matter a year from now?
Master Harris taught us in Tae Kwon Do that if you can’t control the current situation it’s not worth the energy required displaying it. Why swim in hot stinky tar and feathers if the bridge over the pit was a bit longer but more reliable in the end?
As the holidays near so shall the mood swings connected to those who make up the laughs you share and the songs sung under your breath while the radio softly plays in the backseat of the car. Evening newscasts will bark about how bad the economy is, your mailbox will resemble the graveyard of several hundred dead trees and schools will still put on their Christmas festivals with the out of tune kids lined up in the back farthest from the microphone.
A year from now…the only thing that’ll matter is if you’re part of fourth quarter cuts.
I used to laugh at myself when I’d embarrassingly admit that I have no clue what the Bill Cosby Show is or was. Knots Landing, Dynasty, Dallas, Seinfeld and Full House…they’re total no shows on my list of favorites because when they were big, I was doing seven to midnight radio in a day when VCR tapes took a major chunk of what little you made. Today we’ve got reruns but the times around us have changed making each show a relic more than an American fad.
Will any of this matter a year from now?
Why did you take a left at the light when it should’ve been a right? Why did you forget toilet paper a third time at the store? You’ve been meaning to put a Christmas card list together and before you know it, another year will be gone forever. I remember being strict during my teenage daughter’s life but compared to today’s young adult game playing we weren’t so far off the beaten path.
I wonder if a tree ever says so long to its leaves. What does it feel when something once brilliantly green becomes yellowish and orange while disconnecting during a collected thought brought on by wind? Does a tree wish to lift its roots and chase its children of millions? Will any of this matter a year from now?
arroecollins@clearchannel.com
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