new start

Can we start over? Can we forget everything I’ve said and done up to this point? I’d like to erase, delete and disregard all of the minutes of my past now please. I want my next step to be my first. Can we start over?

One of the big movies of the holiday season features Brad Pitt as Benjamin Button. Ben is living life backwards. He’s starting at the end and working toward the beginning. It’s an impossible thing of course, but the idea is weirdly interesting. The movie’s synop says it’s about a man who is “born under unusual circumstances” and he’s unable to stop time. Who among us is?

I wasn’t born in my current place, in this present time. It’s taken me a while to get here. Like you, I was a user. I went through my share of diapers and bottles and cradles and grades and birthday cakes and library books and diplomas and jobs and speeding tickets and arguments and parties and dentist appointments and sermons and setbacks and on and on and on. Whether we’ve been fortunate enough to stumble into it, (Although I prefer to think of it as God getting me here even while I ignorantly made it more complicated than it should’ve been.) or we’ve worked our tails off to make our successes, it took some time, stubbornness and sweat to get to where we are.

So, thinking about it, if we could, would we really want to start over? I don’t want to do school again. I like being able to read, write, articulate, cipher, and drive. I don’t want to do the career ladder thing again either. I’m pleased with where I am, and I like the connections I have, and I’m not about to go back to my starting salary. I’ve worked hard to gradually trade up to a nicer car. Most things in my life are the culmination of hard work, strategy and patience. I don’t think I’m prepared to start them again.

I’ve done a few things I’m ashamed of and some I’m very proud of. I’d truly like to forget some of the embarrassing stuff. Some memories make me angry or sad, but some of my accomplishments pump me up. It’s all a part of who I am now. All the marks, whether they’re scars, wrinkles or medals, combine to form the tiny bits that make up all my parts and form my person, for good or bad.

Now, ask me if I’d like to go back to when my kids were young and I was thinner. Offer me the opportunity to rock my babies to sleep and I’ll jump right on it. Tell me it’s fashionably safe to pull the old suits back out and I’m a new man. Allow me to go back to the days of less stress, lighter loads and simpler solutions and I’ll buy a ticket. But be sure to quote the price first.