“Rulers make bad lovers. You better put your kingdom up for sale.”
With the passing of yet another job, signifying the end of the three month reckless bliss that we call summer, I have come to find myself reflecting on this past summer with relief and excitement – Relief because I am glad to have come out of it alive and excitement because I know that I am on the edge of something big. A lot of things are about to change and I have no idea where these changes will lead me, but I am very excited for it all to start.
While I feel as though change is the only thing that is truly constant, I also feel that there are some things about life that we can never change, no matter how hard we try. When talking things over with a friend, he told me for the millionth time that “the only consistent thing about this place is the inconsistency”, that is to say that change is imminent. In that moment I felt as though the only thing that one could count on in life is the definite change that will occur to everything with time. There was nothing that we could do but get used to change and accept it.
Later in one of our many five-hour-long conversations, he told me a story about an ex lover of his. This woman astounds me in so much that I see myself in her merely fast forwarded a decade… or two… Either way, he told me that while she was the one who broke things off with him, she continually drops hints and makes it known that she is still thinking of him. The worst part about it is his necessary ignorance to her alluring sing song. It is as if this woman is a Siren and my friend a sailor on a ship in the Odyssey. He knows that he must plug his ears if he wants to get out of this alive, but like Odysseus and I suppose all of us, he is curious to hear her melody.
After the abrupt ending to our conversation, as there never was any other ending, I started thinking about what my friend had said about change. It was then that I realized that while little and meaningless things may change, and things that we love so much will inevitably transform, it seems to me that the things we dislike are the things that will fail to vary. We will always have to approach and back away from relationships with caution when we do not wish to. We will always have to make hard decisions, work with deadlines, and do the things that we dislike the most. On the other hand, the things that we love, the friendships that we enjoy and the good times that we spend together will all change and ultimately come to an end.
While there may not be anything we can do to keep the good things from going away or to make the bad things fade, the only true thing we can do is come to peace with this and, like all else, embrace it with a smile. “Life is funny,” is something that my friend would always say after a mildly intoxicating amount of alcohol and I guess after thinking it through I’d have to agree.
