OK, I'm back but I don't know for how long.

Watched the movie "Lost in Translation" this morning and there is a point in the movie where the woman says "I'm stuck," referring to her life. She had reached a point in life where she didn't know which way to go, what to do, even how to consider options. I think we've all been there, and I think that part of the problem is that we get into stages I call life-boredom. You know, those times when you're so bored with your life, so much want it to change, but you don't know how to bring the change about.

On the other hand, there are times in life I call life-disaster, when it seems our life is falling apart, that change is happened too fast and in too big a quantity. Then, we pray for peace, for life to stabilize, to become boring. We are complicated creatures, is man.

Watched the last hour of "Once Upon a Time in the West" last night (I believe that may be the only part of the movie I've ever seen). It's sort of the epitome of the Italian western so you can't really expect too much out of it other than really close-up eye shots, drawn-out dialogue of a minimum number of words, and toooo-long death scenes.

But at one point the writer seemed to forget what kind of movie he was writing for. Henry Fonda says to Charles Bronson, "The land doesn't matter any more. The money doesn't matter. Even the woman is unimportant. Now it's just man against man." To which Charles Bronson says, "It's an ancient race." Now, I think he was saying that mankind is an ancient race. But he might have been saying it's an ancient race, man against man. Or I might have misheard. But, for just a moment, I thought, "ancient and complicated."

Now, my son had perhaps the most chaotic year of his life this year. And I'm sure that last Spring he was praying that his life could just return to a hum-drum, desperately needed it. Now even more change is coming into his life and he is embracing it with both hands. So, you see, this constant fight for change and/or boredom, is complicated. Even the most satisfying of constancy can be boring and even the most chaotic of disaster can be fulfilling.

Actually the "being stuck," referenced earlier, is sort of a separate issue in that it presupposes one has some kind of control over where one's life goes. Of course, we can make decisions, make plans, try to push our lives toward our goals, and sometimes it works. But just about as often, it doesn't. Each person, if they honestly evaluate their life, is forced to admit that they had no idea it was going to turn out the way it did and that to a large measure its direction was out of their control.

So many of the major turning points in my life were not in my hands. The birth of my children certainly wasn't. I did plan on going to college and I did do that, but I flunked a required class my last semester, so it didn't go completely like I planned. I never really planned on advance degrees but when the offer came for them to be partially paid for, I jumped at it. I suppose you can say I decided to change my life in those cases but the world (in the person of a professor) gave me the possibility of that decision.

My first divorce was not my choice and as chaotic as my son's life was this year, mine was just as torn up during my "year-of-hell". Neither of us had any choice in it. Believe me, I tried to stop it and I know he did, even to the point of personal humiliation.

I guess what I'm saying is that if your life is going nowhere or you don't know where it's suppose to be going, if you're bored with your life, your love, your future, don't worry too much. It will change, hopefully for the better. Regardless, it may be years and years before you know whether it was for the better or not. When I look at my first divorce from the advantage point of 30 years, I see that it was one of the best things that ever happened to me - because it led me to my current position, which I wouldn't change for the world.

Except, perhaps... But, as my wife keeps saying, "Be careful what you pray for, because you may get it."