The Magical Mystery Tour Of Life: A Moment With Bill Reflection

“Roll up, roll up for the mystery tour. Roll up, roll up for the mystery tour.
Roll up (and that's an invitation), roll up for the mystery tour.
Roll up (to make a reservation), roll up for the mystery tour.
The magical mystery tour is waiting to take you away,
Waiting to take you away.
Roll up, roll up for the mystery tour.
Roll up, roll up for the mystery tour.
Roll up (we've got everything you need), roll up for the mystery tour.
Roll up (satisfaction guaranteed), roll up for the mystery tour.
The magical mystery tour is hoping to take you away.”

I should have died.

Both feet were on the precipice, and only the slimmest of threads was holding me back from the unforgiving darkness. I had been found guilty of excessive hubris, the verdict was death, and the executioner was standing at the ready, smugness etched across his face as he prepared to put one more notch in this belt.

But I cheated him that day, and for the past seven years I have been the little kid in the candy shop, tasting all the sweets, and wondering why there are so few standing in line with me waiting for the next delectable morsel of this thing we call life.

Do you know what you are missing? Do you have any idea? Do you even care?

Everywhere I go and that’s a fact! Walking downtown with my wife; going to the grocery store; at the movies and restaurants and the park and the convenience store; everywhere I look there are dead people.

The light has gone from their eyes. There is no joy. There are no smiles. There is not a glimmer of hope or enjoyment, and I find that remarkable, and sad, and I want to grab them and shake them and scream in their faces DON’T YOU KNOW WHAT YOU HAVE?

One chance! That’s what we all have, one chance comprised of fifty, sixty, seventy years, comprised of months and weeks and days and hours and minutes, and when they are all gone there are no do-overs, no mulligans, no oops….

There is only darkness, and hopefully in that darkness there is no spiritual equivalent of longing for the what ifs and the shoulda, coulda, woulda waltz, for that longing would be painful indeed for many who ignored the gift…ignored the opportunities…ignored the joy that awaited them each and every day that they were alive.

Why can’t they see?

We all have them; some worse than others. Physical handicaps, emotional roller-coasters, abuse, neglect, rejection and dejection; ignored here, slapped there, tied into a painful knot and unraveled to blow in the wind; yes, we all have them.

A mountain of debt, an ocean of betrayal, a desert of opportunities. Shaken, not stirred…bitten, not kissed….rode hard and put away wet….yes, we all have them and yes, some worse than others.

I knew a guy in Alcoholic’s Anonymous, what we call a short-timer because he was constantly going back out to test the alcoholic waters…anyway, he told me once that I would drink too if I had his problems.

And a paraphrase of those words of wisdom could be said by any of the dead people I previously mentioned in this article….you would be sad and miserable too if you had their problems.

And yet there are some out there who have ‘those’ problems and still see the joy in life.

What’s up with that?

The glory of life my friends. Mine eyes have seen the glory.

Been there, done that, could write the book on it and I ain’t going back again. Where am I talking about?

I’m not riding the Pity Potty Express ever again. Don’t book me into the Sad Sack Bed & Breakfast. I’ve tasted their wares and nothing beats home cookin’ for this boy, and home cookin’ is all about love my friends, love of ourselves and love of others, and if you’ve got love then life looks good no matter what crap fan is blowing on you.

It’s all about perspective, baby, and a one-armed shit-kicker looks pretty good in the Land of the Legless, and this shit-kicker has never had it so good, but none of it would be so…none of it would have come to fruition…if all I concentrated on was the garbage. It’s pretty easy to smell the decay in a garbage dump when you are the one with a shovel, continually digging for the worst. It’s pretty easy to see the worst that life has to offer when your vision is so myopic as to render you nearly color blind.

“Red is gray and
Yellow white
But we decide
Which is right
And
Which is an Illusion”

And we decide which is right….we decide!

And therein lies the secret….we can choose.

We can choose to see vibrant colors or see grays and whites. We can choose to see opportunities or roadblocks to success. We can choose to be lovable or forever walk through the sludge of solitude and yes, we can choose whether to embrace this beautiful gift we have been given, or forever walk a path of darkness and despair.

Yes there are those who are clinically depressed and yes, there are those who have other psychological impediments that make it impossible to choose happiness, but for the 99.5% of us who have no such problem, this boils down to choice.

You can make a typhoon out of a glass of water, or you can drink that life-giving nectar and go forth with a new mission, a mission that ends with you finding joy in life, and embracing the unlimited possibilities you have been given.

In truth I did die seven years ago, and I was then reborn, and today I thrive in a world of my choosing, a world of beautiful hues and wondrous vibrations. I can feel the rhythm of life all around me, and I have plugged into that rhythm and I’m dancing to the beat, baby, and my feet are tireless transports to my own personal candy shop and damn, I gotta tell ya, those candies have never tasted so sweet.

2013 William D. Holland (aka billybuc)

“Helping writers to spread their wings and fly.”