Wake Up And Go To Sleep

The whole point of this blog is to wake up. I think most of us phone it in, spiritually. It’s hard not to. Life is full of stuff, and having to pay actual attention to it all is impossible. We end up multi-tasking, which is really ignoring with more gestures; or going on auto-pilot.

But writing absolutely requires that I think about what I am doing. Perhaps not at exactly the moment it happens, but soon enough. No question, I am more awake than I was.

And no one said being awake always felt good either. Like what happened today. Nothing big. No drama, just a moment of recognition.

I saw myself in a store window, and saw not myself but my father.

Now, I have seen the resemblance before. What stopped me today was how when I glimpsed myself in that window I was old.

Of course, part of why this happened is that I am growing some whiskers, as I often do in the summer. Mine are slow, sparse and mangy so it takes me a long time to see any results. And now, because I am older, it is gray as well as light blond, so it takes even longer.

The reason why I mention this is that my late father kept a small beard in his latter days. He and I have similar colored hair as well. And today I was wearing a summer shirt that is like those he wore. So I saw him looking back at me today, not the man I am now.

Until today the man who looked back in the mirror was passably under fifty, younger in deportment and appearance than his years. This has been a frustration sometimes as people tend to treat you as younger as well. But I told myself it would pay back as I got older. While contemporaries raced toward antiquity, I though, I would remind people of Dorian Grey.

Over the years I have seen the boy I was looking back at me in the mirror. Today for the first time I saw the old man I am to be.

That woke me up.

Can I hit snooze?