Dark is Half of Every Day

I've been working on this site for a little over 2 months.  I finally made it public yesterday, around midnight. The timing was calculated.  In ten days I turn 51.  

The inspiration for the blog came from a conversation I had with friends almost forty years ago that alluded to the age I'd die.  There is no basis of truth in the allusion, but I never forgot the conversation, or how natural it was.

My favorite topics to explore, and write about, are topics most people traditionally think of as morbid, or deep, or heavy.  Needless to say, I don't get a lot of invitations to cocktail parties.  I'm not trying to impress, or shock, anyone.  I'm just doing what I've always done for as long as I can remember.

I don't consider the examination of death, or dying, to be inherently morbid.  I think participating in the relatively lengthy process of my mother's terminal cancer, and the equally lengthy organ transplant, and failure, of her second husband, Jack, are responsible for that.  I loved them both deeply.  And both were the most engaging, and real, and alive, I'd ever seen  during the year they died.  That means 1 of 2 things:

1.  Something miraculous happens to our ability to engage life, and authenticity, in our last months.  Or,
2.  We hide in fear until we know our time's up.

I know which one applies to me.  That's why I'm doing this.  

When we look at death we call its opposite 
into play, Life.  I think that's where the

discomfort is.  You can't examine death without examining the unique life you lived.  In my experience, most people don't want to do that. Not truthfully.  Dark is only half the day.   You have to examine the whole if you want to know the parts. 

The truth is I'm blown away to be living, and to have been granted an emotional perspective.  The accident, or intention, that granted me my decades deserves something in return, I think.  I feel obligated to examine anything that gets me closer to living with purpose.  I want to know my life mattered.  

The only way I can be certain of that comes through others.  It's not an evaluation for me to make.  The level of meaning I feel in my life is directly related to the difference I make in the life of someone else.  I dig that equation.  It allows me to decide for myself.  There's no graph that says if I'm in the 'blue column' I qualify, or I'm you know what if I'm in the red.  I know the level of meaning in my life by assessing the integrity of my own heart.  That's what this blog is about.  

It's been a long time since I spent time with myself, and asked how I'm doing.   This is simply an open conversation with the Universe.