Blog 2620 – 12.31.2022
Out With The Old And In With The New
Today’s title is not a phrase particularly beloved by conservatives nor by older people but since I was for a long time the one and am now the other I feel doubly qualified to share why I think it is important especially on this eve of a New Year that we should all embrace the concept. It is a theme I have already used in a number of blogs and will again I am sure, our need to let go of beliefs, things, and even people that are no longer serving us.
Yesterday, I learned of the deaths of two more of my high school classmates. The first was Mike McCoy, battalion leader of my high senior class ROTC and our star baseball player. The second a very close friend, Eddie Oliver, who left our high school before graduating but who for years was widely known as the chairman of East Lake and who organized class reunions and kept us all informed about the passing of friends and loved ones for many years.
Eddie, though never himself in the military, was a one-man honor guard who did a great service not only to the loved and lost but to us survivors by helping us to mark their passing and to let go of them and move on with our lives. Mourning is an important and necessary process, one that if not completed properly leaves us in a sort of limbo. Limbo is a reference to A Roman Catholic belief regarding a special place where unbaptized children go instead of heaven or hell, stuck forever in between. The limbo is also a dance step where one is required to maneuver beneath an ever lowering stick held by two individuals who make sure the dancer does not touch the stick as the rest of the dancers all watch waiting their turn with all libidos excited by the gymnastics necessary to accomplish this feat and each one wondering, “How low can he or she go.” Eventually that question as are all questions is answered when each dancer makes their last pass.
I do not believe in forever mourning nor in an eternal limbo for innocent souls or those otherwise who fail to follow the rules. The rules always seem to be written to benefit a few over others, usually the same precious few who flaunt those rules the most.
But I digress, we must learn to let go in order to grow. Someone has said all relationships end in a brick wall or as another friend puts it: “When we are born one shoe drops and we are the rest of our lives waiting on that other shoe to drop.” We are all in line and our turn will come soon enough but till it does we should enjoy the dance.
Your friend and fellow traveler,
David White
The Dance
theencouragingword 