About This Blog

As time permits, in-depth musings on myriad subjects will be posted. Abbreviated adages will be announced via Twitter.

Thursday, September 21, 2017

Only Now

"Hate Me" whispers its way through multi-channel surround sound as I sit at a table, grading papers as darkness sits outside my window, biding its time until sunrise.

So little (yet so much) has changed, save the scenery.

The above is true now just as it was ten or so years prior, only now the roof over my head never sheltered my grandparents but now shelters the great-grandchildren they never met yet bear both legacy and name. Only now I am (re)married and now with two children, still struggling through the challenges life, the universe, everything so mercilessly makes happen. Only now I am older, yet seemingly no wiser.

The gold-framed text of King Lear still adorns a wall, though only now in the recesses of the spare room.

It struck me as curious how similar tonight's scenario is to how I things were decade ago. Only now, Nicholle is off tutoring a student across town, rather than being stuck in some graduate-level chemistry lab across town. Only now I know she'll be home soon. Only now there are children slumbering in other rooms in this house slowly turned into a home.

The stresses through which we navigate the days, the weeks, the months, and now years have indeed taken their collective tolls on us. There seems no time for either introspection or respite, yielding figurative storms paralleled by the literal ones raging to the south and east. Sometimes we weather the storms as a solid wall of partnership. Sometimes we arrogantly attempt to ride them out alone.

Tonight was one of the latter, and only after the initial waves passed, and I found myself in the eye, did I have the sight to see where we were and what was occurring. Only now did I finally get introspection. Only now did I finally get respite. Only now I am I able to begin anew the process of repairing, of rebuilding from the ravages of the squalls.

A multitude of assignments sits, awaiting judgement. My judgement, so I must abandon this little aside of virtually scribbling my thoughts for any to see and return to the responsibilities of my called-to profession.

And now the storm has passed.

And now the house is quiet.

And now there is peace.

Thanks for reading.