73. It Took Me a Lifetime
It took me a lifetime to get where I am. This concept has helped me to be kind to myself, to not waste too much time having regrets about what I didn’t do earlier, and to acknowledge that what I do and am now is a sum total of where I have been up to now.
The feminist and social activist singer/composer Holly Near wrote a song “It Could Have Been Me” on her way to the first year’s memorial service at Kent State in 1974. Someone asked her how long it took her to write the songs and she answered, “One could say I wrote it in an hour and a half. Or, one could say it took a lifetime getting to a place where the song could happen.
And I have learned that it’s my living that enables me to do what I do today. Everything is connected, and I end up being who I am today because of the life I have lived. It takes me all of these 79 years to get to where I can write this particular poem, or compose that piece of music, or create the friendship that I’m excited about, or love in a deeper way than I ever have.
