And so, the end is nigh and another year closes. Goodbye 2010.
The last ten years have had some unbelievable highs and some undeniable lows and yet as the final evening of 2010 passes I can’t help but feel that I’ve grown and changed in ways I couldn’t possibly have imagined.
In these ten years or so my world has opened up from having never been beyond the four corners of England to travelling as far away as China, USA, Canada and most of Europe. My eyes set their sights on a life motivated by things that went before. I achieved it on the surface; the car, the house, the family, the money and yet I felt so empty and alone that I had to turn back round and go back to my youth and undertake the same level of spiritual and psychological growth on the inside as the travels on plane, train and automobile in the real world.
It’s been a period of change and change for the better through experiencing the worst.
In 2000, I was hopeful – as we all were – of great things to come, a new millennium of innovation and discovery, hopes for ourselves, our friends and our families. September 11th 2001 was probably the defining moment for us all, shaping the decade in society and scarring our minds with the sobering vision of how fragile and ruthless humanity can be all in one moment. I had only just left University at the turn of the decade and was starting my first job in 2000 and since then went from the very beginnings as a professional in my field to the very top of the profession in my sector in less than 8 years, on a head of steam trying to prove some about myself. And now, in 2010 I look back fondly at those days spent teaching myself new skills, talking and thinking, innovating and working with fantastic colleagues and pushing myself in a way that was probably unhealthy in many ways but fruitful in so many senses.
I built a family of my own and got married, bought a house, started living ‘the dream’ and held on to almost everyone I’d met in some shape or form as friends or family. I didn’t know back then that only half of me was in play.
But there were losses along the way; my Grandmother in 2004 (the first person to die in my close family since my baby brother) and then in 2010 both my great Aunt and my father Roger.
Throughout this time, the influence of my father played a massive role in changing me – our relationship being one of turbulence, disappointments, compounding tragedies and misrepresentations …..but always love. My journey took me as far away from him as I could get both physically and psychologically in order to truly discover who he was and what he was all about. It was in this decade that I became my father’s son rather than fighting against it and in that change, I found myself and started to put right my misinterpretation of the world, skewed by the lenses of inheritance to create more of my own world view.
My faith in life returns stronger and brighter every day and in many ways I feel like a rite of passage was at the core of what living through this decade was all about.
As I leave 2010, I am blessed with some amazing people in my life – profound love for those directly around me whose life force flows in and around me in ways I have only just been able to grow into. Love is no longer about ownership or ‘rights’ to feel things – nor is it about what you should or shouldn’t get for free just because society tells you so. Love at the close of 2010 is realising that only the people you bring with you in life, who know your story, who are part of the pages in your book are worth the time, energy and effort once afforded to earning money, buying things and owning ‘stuff’. Love isn’t earned, it’s gifted and you can’t choose whether you feel it or not, it’s either there or it’s not but it truly is the strongest compass for where next to tread.
In saying goodbye to 2000-2010, I close a chapter on my life with my Dad and to a version of myself once plagued by uncertainty and anxiety. My Dad gave me my greatest gifts; a passion for thinking, a passion for wanting to help people grow; a passion for music and the arts and most importantly, as I’ve said before, he gave me the story of his life from which I can forever draw inspiration and guidance.
It was said at my Dad’s funeral that he was ‘on to the mystery’ in life. I’d already begun to right myself before he died and as 2011 rises I intend to take up where he left off. My hope for the new year and the years beyond is that I reform my physical capacity, am stronger and more energetic, I love harder and more deeply those I am connected to and that I find a way to harness the gifts I inherited from those I lost in the decade just gone to bring about rise to new lives and friendships through which I can pass those gifts on.
This time last year, I had an overwhelming feeling I was to lose something. This year I don’t fear loss or anticipate gain – I’m just glad to be alive and in the lives of those I hold dear.
I’ll leave you with a recording my brother, sister and I made to be played as the curtain fell on his life with us at his funeral.
‘Blackbird’ – The Blairs (MP3)
‘Blackbird singing in the dead of night, take these broken wings and learn to fly. All your life you were only waiting for this moment to arrive.’
A happy new year to all my family and friends. Lets make it a good one.
