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Camille Granito Mancuso: Chatterbox — There goes my life

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There’s a wonderful country song called, “There Goes My Life.”
We are fortunate that, with all the online availability, we can hear old music as easily as the new stuff with just the touch of a button. This song was new back in 2009, but the story it tells is timeless.

It’s the evolution of one man’s life, but all of us can understand the tale. Life without love is an unnatural stagnation. Life with love involves continual evolution and continuous sacrifice, with all the effects of any pebble in a pool.

Even if we try, we can’t avoid the ripples. Even when we wish we could stop or slow change, it happens at its own speed, with or without our permission. The aging process begins at conception and whether our life more resembles a Monet or a Picasso is never completely our choice. Every life is an avalanche, a waterfall, a journey on a railway through and into the unknown. Our choices may affect the shape, but happenstance is the color.

This life lesson/grab the tissues song recorded by Kenny Chesney will rip our hearts out. We progress through the story of unexpected parenthood when a baby girl interrupts the dreams of a very young man. He laments, “There goes my life,” as he realizes his plans and aspirations have vaporized. More tissues as we progress through his gradual realization, as she grows. She blows him kisses and says, “Goodnight, Daddy,” from the stairs. He sings “There goes my life…” meaning ‘there she is … my life.’

One more chorus: She’s grown and is leaving for the West Coast. He sings, “There goes my life” closer to its original meaning when he thought it was dissolving because she arrived. However, now, he feels it dissolving because she’s leaving. He realizes as she leaves, she’s taking his life with her. Yup, it’s a 10 hankie, tear-jerking, life-talking, heart-breaking, country song and there’s no dog, no truck and no prison in it. It’s just one life story (short break here as I cry my eyes out).

This past April 27, Chatterbox talked about keeping a journal, writing a memoir, taking time to talk with our kids, their kids and each other, about our journey and the journeys of our family members. Story telling is the oldest method of preserving all the history we’ve ever had. Today, video recordings make it easier than ever to share and preserve the precious tales of individuals, elders, and the variety of escapades we each have in our memory banks.

To say something, isn’t enough. To know it, feel it, understand it, none of these is enough. Only when we have all of these together is any lesson enough. There’s that time and effort and, mostly, personal sacrifice again. Looking forward, we all wish we could bequeath the knowledge we’ve gained the hard way, with time, effort and, often, the surrendering of our dreams. As we age, we try to pass knowledge on to those who will, sadly, only gain interest when they’re older and, most usually, when the opportunity has passed.

Creating a paradox, looking backwards, eventually, we all wish we’d paid more attention to our elders when we had the chance. Even as every day presents us all with opportunities to share the best of who we are and what we know of life, most often, most of us just keep doing life the hard way – we learn most life lessons on our own, and take most of what we gain from them with us when our journey ends.

It’s our own country song, our own way of reminding ourselves that, when we believe the apple cart has just gone over and our life is toast, we don’t know anything, even if we think we do. When we get lost, we’d be wise to remember that every detour offers an unexpected experience and unique scenery. When the journey we plan goes out the window, the fresh breeze of something new flows in.

Chatterbox Nov. 2, 2006, talked about embracing the chaos. It’s not always easy but it always has its perks. Most of us have thought, at one time or another, “There goes my day,” or “there goes my life,” but something comes in its stead and, as our perspective clears, it becomes the part of the canvas that is our life.

There’s an expression that goes, “If you want to hear God chuckle, tell Him what you’ve got planned.”

Yup.


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