NOT KEEPING SCORE

A MULTI-PART EXPLORATION ON WHETHER PEOPLE CHANGE, THROUGH THE COMPLETELY UN-SYSTEMATIC ANALYSIS OF PERSONAL ITEMS FOUND IN SHANNON DEJONG’S “SPECIAL BOX” AND ASSORTED CHILDHOOD MEMORABILIA*[1]

Part II

Speaking of whether people change…

I’m about to sit down at my computer and write a post about change in perspective.

I am about to write about how I may have been feeling just a teeeeensy itty-bitty-bit restless with all this transition to the country bumpkin lifestyle away from the city, and that maybe I’m not as solidly Golden-Buddha-Monkey about not knowing exactly, perfectly, pink-ribbon-ly where my life is headed.

So sue me that I’m not the Dali Lama when it comes to life transitions. (Deep breath in, deep breath out.)

I am about to write a post about a friend of mine who came to visit me out here the boon-docks.

The post that I am about to write? It will describe a particularly moody morning, where I am questioning this whole move-from-the-city-thing (”There’s no culture here. What kind of a town doesn’t have at least one transvestite?!”)

It will tell about my lovely friend who comes to visit and reminds me that the grass in Penngrove is always greener: over lunch my friend will be so enamored with my little Sonoma County retreat — this sleepy little town complete with barns, pastures and sheep — that she will say it is her “new life goal to live here some day.”

She will go on and on about the stresses of the city and what a wonderful set-up I have, and how lucky I am to have some time to chill out with the cows.

Well, shit. I can’t very well feel restless after that. Sometimes we just need an outside perspective to help us change our own.

And so I am about to sit down to write this post for you good people, thinking it a mighty fine lesson –

But before I do this I type into the search bar of my own blog “perspective” just to check to see what else I’ve written on the topic, to avoid repeating myself, and what do I find but this post titled “Visitor” from May of last year in which I learned a similar lesson — in fact, it seems it’s a lesson I keep learning over and over:

“It was a lesson I had learned before — that perspective, not circumstance, dictates happiness.” That’s what I had written. That’s what I had learned.

And I slap myself on my forehead. Because did I remember the lesson on the next go-around? Did I remember to accommodate a new perspective when I wasn’t feeling happy with my circumstances? No, I did not.

So, speaking of whether people change…Consider this a tally mark in the column for DO NOT.

But then again — around here, we’re not supposed to be keeping score…
* * *

To be continued…Check back in later to NotKeepingScore.com for the rest of IN FLUX: DO PEOPLE CHANGE?

*[1]Quite possibly the most lengthy and self-indulgent blog posting on NKS to date