The Beginning

A story on a theme: BEGINNING

“Where are my ideals; my zest for life?” he thought as he recalled the footage of his life. It was an effort on his part to make sense of things. Boredom, divorce, layoff, confidence; they were signs of something inherently wrong with his life. They key, he convinced himself, must surely lie in going back to the beginning.

The confidence; it was a reflection of the trust he’d put into so many important things in his life. Each trusting choice rife with his own sacrifice; choices he made in order to move forward in the life he was led on to believe was the right one to pursue. One by one as each trust broke, his fragile confidence slowly eroded and crumbled. Gone were the days he felt free and invincible; as if he could do anything and those he chose to be with felt the same.

The layoff; it forever shattered his conviction that working for a cause while remaining selfless justified itself in the end. With each and every year, the perception of excitement laid against the effort to succeed spread further and further apart. In the end, nothing about what he did meant anything. His self value in the eyes of his superiors didn’t exist. He was a number; a tool. And he knew it.

The boredom; it began when his real passions were put to the side. His sailing, his surfing, his composing; all of the things that made him who he started out to be had slowly and silently been replaced by the routine of work and family. And for what? In the end, those had collapsed too.

The divorce; it came without warning. In reality, the warning signs were there all along. The long hours, the focus on kids, the lack of focus on the relationship, the loss of his own happiness and confidence were all neon signs upon his road to ruin. He blindly drove that road to the very end.

Going back to the beginning was the redemption. He moved back to the big Island upon which he grew up. He pursued all of his former interests again: sailing, surfing, composing. For awhile it worked. The experiences of living again were real; tangible. It felt good to do the things he loved.

After awhile; something felt off. Something was missing. Nearly all of his former friends he grew up with had moved on. The one or two that remained didn’t seem to be going anywhere and he knew it. He felt unchallenged; as if everyday were a rewind of the day before. It was as if he had entered into the same mundane routine pattern that drove him to boredom before. How could this have happened? These were the things he loved; these were the things that made him who he was.

Then it occurred to him. Going back to the beginning wasn’t the answer at all. If all of literature were to teach him anything, the one lesson he needed to learn is that you can’t go home again. The answer wasn’t’ going back to the beginning, the answer was to start a new beginning. A beginning based upon his choices now not his choices 30 years before. He needed a beginning full of excitement into the unknown; something fresh and challenging; something that did interest him and brought life into him.

A smile crept onto his face. He realized that a beginning is simply a point in time and that he could start one at any time he chose. That was the simplicity of it. That was the beauty of it. He would be alright after all; he’d figured it out in time.