Get Busy Living Or Get Busy Dying

I've been introspective lately, trying to work out in my mind this great transition in my life.  When I moved from KY, it didn't initially seem hard, primarily because I refused in any manner to say goodbye.  It's not a word in my vocabulary.  I find, as I think about it, that this is true not just for people or places, but times in the past that I hold on to like my life depended on it.

So today, September 11, 2011, and all the days leading up to it, has me thinking about letting go of the past.

Like the rest of you, I remember very clearly where I was on September 11, 2001.  It's funny, there are whole years of my life that I don't remember more than a few pieces of.  But I remember seven distinct moments from that day.  I remember the class I was in prior to the attacks.  I had an early estate and gift tax class.  When I got out and went to my next class I had no idea what was going on.  Prof. Bratt, my trusts and estates professor, told us what was happening and dismissed the class.  We all went downstairs to the lounge and watched on the big screen tv until the last tower fell.  I remember sitting outside the law school on the most ironically beautiful fall day talking to my dad on my cell phone.  I remember watching in the library as they showed pictures of what was left of Flight 93 and I remember that we all wondered if it was an accident caused by trying to land so many flights all at the same time.  I remember talking to my friends in the library and being worried because I realized that I thought my sister was flying that day - thankfully she was fine.  And I remember sitting in my bedroom at the end of the day, watching the coverage and how weird it seemed that all channels played only news or nothing at all.

I have not indulged in 9/11 since 2001.  I think on the first anniversary I watched a bit of the memorial.  But after that I didn't rewatch coverage or read accounts of the victims.  I just didn't want to go back to that.  But in an odd way, I've locked that time in my memory.  I never dealt with it.  To this day I don't understand the odd reaction I have to the memories of that day.  A blend of horror and fascination, total denial and yet holding that time close in an almost comforting way.  It was one time, the only time in my life, when we all stopped.  When we all felt close to each other.  It reminded us of the best and worst and for that reason it is a time that, while I sincerely wish it would never have happened, in an odd way I cherish the response to it because it reminds me that we're all compassionate. (I'm not speaking about the wars that followed.)

This year, I stopped my self-imposed moratorium and watched several documentaries on the victims of 9/11.  It's still painful and I think back to how naive we all were that day, hoping it was just a freak accident.  I think back to myself on that day, all that I had yet to experience and all that I didn't know.  I sort of wish I could go back to that day.  But then, I know that time has moved on.  And that's painful for its own reasons.

Someone on Facebook today said, forgive, but never forget.  It's important to learn from the past, to remember that evil is real.   That bravery is also real.  But it's important to carry on.

So that brings me to the title of this post, get busy living or get busy dying.  I'd like to thank Stephen King for the line from "The Shawshank Redemption" and Morgan Freeman for delivering that line in such a way that it sticks with you.  At the end of the day, that's really the choice that we have to make.  Move forward or stay still and look backward.  As I said, I don't let go of things easily.  I don't think I hold grudges, but I do hold on to the past in a way that can be destructive to the future.  I've spent years frozen mourning for the past.

So,  this week, I've been thinking about letting go and all that entails.  I think it starts with the rather obvious realization that time only moves in one direction and it will continue moving forward no matter our response to it.  We can let it pass us by or we can get to it.  I think that for me that means going to church here and not continually comparing it to my church in Lexington, just opening my heart to the new place.  I think it means finding a bell group out here so that all the music doesn't just stay behind in Kentucky.  It means trying with new vigor this week to lead the way at work instead of sitting behind my desk and wondering what I'm doing here.  It means that it's okay that I've been feeling sad and missing home for a while, that's going to happen, but it's time to put down just a few roots here in California.

On this September 11, which is a day that has personal sadness attached to it for our family unrelated to the attacks, I realize that life is fleeting.  And a life lived holding on to the past isn't much of a life at all.  So, I'm gonna get busy living.  I think it's what the victims of 9/11 (all of them) would want us to do.  Who's with me?