This is the Sea

I'm guessing everyone has at some point in their life looked around themselves and wondered, "How did I get here?" We know David Byrne has, or at least we can assume so based on the 1980 Talking Heads song, Once in a Lifetime.

Sidebar: That song is from 1980? Like, 45-years-ago-1980? Having spent 25 years saying, "The date is twenty-something", now, "1980" sounds more like saying, "1880". Yet, the 1980s are also ever present in my mind, especially with the current wave of conservative governments in the States and Europe. Later in the 80s, as a teen, it was very common to think Mulroney, Reagan and Thatcher were the stuff creepy European folktales were made of. They would seem sweetly naive by today’s conservative standards. Well, maybe not Thatcher (shiver). It is funny to think nostalgically of a time when we wondered if we were running out of tomorrows. These days it’s very common to believe democracy is in its death throes. Some are protesting it, some are trying to ignore it, some are fighting it, but unfortunately, quite a few are profiting from it. Is that how the mind works? Yesterdays are for nostalgia and tomorrows are for hope and fears?

This brings me back to my point (I just knew I’d get there eventually): sometimes you have to look around and wonder “How did I get here?” Sometimes in your life, a change happens and you don’t realize it. Other times a change happens and your world shakes and you know it’s important and even if it took you by surprise it feels inevitable. When Robert Frost wrote The Road Not Taken, was he thinking that his choices made his life, or that we fool ourselves by thinking that our choices make our lives as they turn out to be? Do we even have free will? Does it even matter?

There's a thought experiment that proposes you lead your life making certain decisions, then go back to the start, make different decisions, and then compare the two outcomes. Well, of course, this is impossible and even if it were possible it may have an infinite number of outcomes, or, maybe the same one. The thing is, you'll never know. In fact, it is a certainty that you will never know. From that point of view, what does it matter? Thus it follows, why have regrets? You can't go back and change something if you do regret a choice you made, so why think about that? I've always known I suffer from buyer's remorse. Well, I used to, but by reframing my decisions as something I made based on what I knew at the time, I can't very well go back and tell myself, "You'll regret those shoes, don't buy them.", so why bother? These are the shoes you have. If you don't like them, don't wear them and get rid of them. Move on. In the end, you have to ask yourself, "Am I happy?", and if the answer is, "Yes.", then you need to accept every decision you made up until this moment is what brought you here.

I'm sure we studied Frost's popular poem in high school (though I don't recall it), but what I do recall are the songs I listened to, like the Talking Heads and more importantly, The Waterboys. Their song from 1985 (oh God, not another 20th-century reference), This is the Sea has always affected me. Like most art, it doesn't really matter what the artist's intention was, but more importantly how the audience interprets it. I've always assumed the song, with its chorus, "That was the river, but this is the sea", spoke about reflecting on a reckless youth and other tumultuous times that lead you to where you find yourself. Whatever your journey, whatever twists and turns you've taken along the way, whatever trials, missteps, sadness, or screwups you made, lead you to your destination. You are where you are now because of what you went through.

Now another life change is upon us as we’ve purchased a new home. It’s in a wonderful neighbourhood and has its own distinct feel. While we mused about building a place that may have been perfect, it was also feeling further out of reach and then this place appeared at our feet. I know for sure I have spent more time shopping for pants than we did thinking about this place. Sometimes you have to go with your gut. Sometimes you take the road less taken because it’s less taken. In the end, we took a river and arrived at the sea.