A Loose Life Story

I know now what it is that I will do with my life. I know now who I want to be. I will hold on to this plan very gently and try to be ready if I begin to spontaneously grow in another direction.

I will become a psychotherapist. I will study at a not-too-conservative/not-too-new-agey university, where we will speak of resolving internal conflicts taking responsibility for emotions and how to learn to live with change.

I will open a practice where I treat people who don’t really “need” a psychologist for a severe or debilitating pathology, but who are interested in exploring the subtleties of their social and emotional lives. I will offer casual advice in the guise of “things to consider” and a patient, friendly, and encouraging ear for human beings who have somehow or another started to notice that sometimes life is scary. I will have an understanding in my studies, both academic and practical, of meditation and other avenues of self-exploration. Hopefully this will make me an asset to people who have begun to look deep inside themselves. I will do my best to be compassionate and non-judgmental when my patients do not live up to their hopes or plans, or lose control, or have moments of weakness, because they’re not gods and because neither am I. Whenever I myself remember, and thus can say in a genuine and heartfelt way that will give it meaning, I will remind my patients that everything is ok. Keep on truckin’.

I will write books in my free time. They will sometimes be funny and sometimes be sincere and intimate, and sometimes they will be self-indulgent and talk about strange things that interest only me. I will do my best to offer what few insights into the human condition I am able to glean from talking with my patients and from examining my own life, from learning how to heal. I will write them because every word I put down will show me something new about myself. When people read my books, I hope that they will feel as though they’re not alone. As though their inner worlds are nothing strange or alien or shameful, but the very root of that long thread that connects us all. I will try to avoid using sentences like the last one. I will have a giant poster of Allen Ginsberg in my study/office and sometimes I will wink at it. This will make me feel timeless and alive. None of my books will ever save the world.

I will live somewhere with pleasant weather, so when the breeze comes through my window it will warm my skin and help me to smile. On afternoons, when I have some free time, I will sit and read something that makes me feel understood, valid, and adequate. Perhaps I’ll marry someone who I truly love. She’ll be honest and open enough to show me her eccentricities and if I’m lucky she’ll do it without shame, and I will smile. When there’s nothing that needs to be said we’ll be happy just to sit together. We will spend lots of time together, and lots of time apart. We will go dancing. I will do my best to find the romance even when it changes shape. When we’re fighting and I don’t know why I’ll try to let it pass without aggravating my old wounds. When we’re fighting and I do know why I’ll try my best not to be venomous, to look at things from her point of view and to persevere until we resolve our troubles or forget why were fighting in the first place. I will grow because of our love and when one day it ends by death or distant hearts I will still know, even as it tears me apart, that I would do it all again, because it was honest, real.

When I am an old man I will wear a white, brimmed hat and sunglasses. I will drink coffee at a table on the street and watch the people walking by. Some days I will have a flower in my lapel for no reason but that it is that kind of day. I will be a spunky old rogue, who is not afraid to laugh or push around the young folk. Sometimes I will say incomprehensibly cryptic things and no one will ever be able to decide whether they bear some great cosmic significance or are just the musings of a strange old fool, least of all myself. I will never understand women and that will be a source of great joy to me. I will die quietly, with a grin on my face. After that, I don’t know what I’ll do.