I'm getting older, too....and happier

Yes, I put a lot of stock in astrology. It's not that I believe in it explicitly, but it's just one of the tools in my toolbox. I don't believe it's the work of the devil or the occult, as a serious Christian once told me, who said she considered it a sin to read the horoscope in the daily newspaper. Do you read your fortune cookie when you go out for Chinese? Her answer was, yes. So what's the difference, I asked. Of course, she couldn't see the logic.

Anyway, this was my horoscope on my Facebook page today:

John,
Friendships are in the process of a deep personal overhaul. It's not really your friends who are changing - it's you. You are getting older and more mature, and your family or home situation may have an impact on an old friend who has gotten older but not wiser lately.

Hmmm.... and Landslide is playing in my head...funny how all this works....I used to analyze and try to figure this stuff out. I was accused of being too intense, too cerebral. Now I don't think about it too much; I just notice and live and enjoy and marvel at it all...

This has been going on with me for the past couple of years. I've looked hard at a lot of the people I had in my life, and thought that, while they weren't bad people, they just weren't good for me. And I removed them from my life. And this bothered me...a lot. I thought I was being harsh and cruel, something I never thought I was, or that I wanted to be.

But more and more as I talk to people my age, or rather, at the same relative stage I am in my life, it seems all this sorting and culling out is all normal and natural. I thought so, but it's nice to have validation. I have people in my life now, but very few, far less than I've ever had before which has made for some very lonely times, but when I'm with them life is wonderful. They're my children and one or two very old friends, and one or two new friends. People I know have told me they've either gone through the same stage, or are going through the same stage now.

People grow older and change. And some people, hopefully I'm one of them, grow wiser as as we get older. Unfortunately, some, many people don't grow wiser (and I'm very well aware that that is a very subjective statement), and you find the personal relationship you're in with them much like the ones you had when you were in high school or in your twenties. They haven't changed much since that time, and that's usually a result of not really living a life, or having real life-changing experiences. They haven't walked through the fire and emerged on the other side.

And that can get mighty wearing on a person. And, many times, it's destructive to you. And you can't let that happen. It's a hard thing to let people go in your life. It's not something most of us do naturally. We tend to either stay or perpetuate relationships long after their time is up, long after they've become unhealthy or destructive. You have to take that first step. And the next and then the next. It gets easier because, not surprisingly, your life gets better. The pain or anxiety or discomfort that was always there goes away, and a certain kind of peace takes over. That peace might best be described as happiness, or contentment.

Landslide

You reach an age...or maybe it's not an age because age really just is a state of mind...so we reach a stage in our lives where we really stop giving a shit about a lot of things that we used to spend way too much time and energy worrying about...we do and say things and don't care how they sound or come across, because that's just the way we are...that's just the way the Creator made us and we just accept ourselves for who we are, not good, not bad, certainly not perfect, just human...one of the biggest reliefs in my life was learning that I'm just human...at one point in my life, it seems like so long ago, so much was expected of me...others expected things of me that I wasn't capable of doing, no more than you'd expect a fish to play the guitar...I was put on a pedestal, and the dizzy height of that place is somewhere I don't ever want to be again...and amazingly, when you stop trying to be that person that everyone else wants you to be and you become that person you really are, the horizon just opens up...

Anyway, all the above comes around because I'm about to say something that's going to sound so weird and bizarre, and I plain old don't care: I wish I had Stevie Nicks' voice, at least when she was in her prime, because I love voices that aren't beautiful voices. Lucinda Williams. Steve Earle. John Prine. People whose rough voices add so much to the song.

And the combination of Nicks' voice and the lyrics make this song so powerful.

I took my love and I took it down
I climbed a mountain and I turned around
And I saw my reflection in the snow covered hills
Well the landslide brought me down

Oh, mirror in the sky
What is love
Can the child within my heart rise above
Can I sail thru the changing ocean tides
Can I handle the seasons of my life

Well, I've been afraid of changing 'cause I built my life around you
But time makes you bolder
Children get older
I'm getting older too
Well...

Well, I've been afraid of changing 'cause I built my life around you
But time makes you bolder
Children get older
I'm getting older, too
Well I'm getting older too

So, take this love and take it down
Year and if you climb a mountain and ya turn around
And if you see my reflection in the snow-covered hills
Well the landslide brought me down
And if you see my reflection in the snow-covered hills
Well maybe
Well maybe
Well maybe the landslide will bring you down