I know the real reason why these sudden pings hit. It's because John's death is a sign of the changes forthcoming. John died, just like my mother will die, my father will die and so many other people I love will die--many before I do. My time in the army will end and at some point I will be out in the workforce doing whatever it is I've finally dragged myself into doing. The plain fact of the matter is that comfort is an illusion. Nothing is as it seems to be, at least not for long. I have always just pictured the family intact, every person present. I have never pictured the family gatherings shrinking in number, just as I had never imagined them enlarging.
For the last several years of my life, I have plodded along like nothing was changing, that everything was the same as it had been a year or two or three ago; I was the same person with the same ambitions, the same morals, the same gifts and skills. For the most part, it was true, and there were no abrupt drastic changes in my outlook on life...but little by little, things *have* changed about me and my outlook...my ideas about religion, the military, literature, love, purpose...the ideals are not the same. Even this journal itself is different, in appearance and in it's composition. I didn't picture the changes, but they happened right underneath my nose, some with my assistance, consciously or not, some without.
So I've never tried to gaze into the future, never tried to picture myself twenty, ten, or even five eyars from now--never thought about what my world would encompass in the next few years. To a large extent, this is a major cause to my indecisiveness...by not addressing the future, I could not plan for it.
My uncle is gone. The present is not like the past, and the future will not be like the present. We need to act with this in mind.
Nothing on this date last year