Life’s Constant, Change

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For the past two years I have been largely isolated as I have faced my battle with end-stage liver failure. I did not venture to leave society as Henry David Thoreau did, yet I was isolated from society. While yet, I did maintained a strange and disjointed connection with the world around me.

My sense of isolation reminds me of the two years that Thoreau spent living in his cabin on Walden pond and his largely symbolic withdrawal from society. The cabin was only a mile and a half from the center of Concord Massachusetts and he had many visitors. He was also known to often walk into Concord, at times daily. None the less this was his retreat from society, his legend. His journal stated his purpose as "withdrawing to the garret... to meet myself face to face sooner or later."

Though not by design or intent like Thoreau I have spent two years within my garret. This blog was supposed to be my diary, but circumstance prevented me from making but a few entries. Instead I have a collection of snippets of memory from which to draw my conclusions. To me these two years seemed to be consistent, predictable, a strange routine, a familiar dance. Each day seemed a copy of the previous. Now I see that it was actually a time of constant change. Each day was in fact a change from the last, some better, some worse. So, unrecognized, change was my constant companion.

Thoreau's conclusion to his withdrawal was:

“If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours … In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness.”

The conclusion to my story is yet mostly unwritten. I feel at time as if upon a river with an ever changing current. At times propelled rapidly toward an unknown destination. I believe Thoreau to be right. If we focus on our hopes, dreams and goals we will meet with success. My life until two years ago was a proof of his theorem. My mind was focused on what I believed I could achieve and in large part I had achieved all I imagined and in many cases against the odds.

The future is now a blank slate, I have a faint image of my dreams for the future but to achieve them requires change; at times even courage. So the first seasons of my life were driven by confidence, dreams and a sense of being unstoppable. The past season showed that I was in fact stoppable. It has shaken my confidence and left me a bit uncertain.

Today’s challenge is to embrace change. To refine and focus my dreams. To rekindle the confidence of my youth. Then “advance confidently in the direction of [my] dreams and to live the life which [I now] imagine.”