OMG! Help!….I suddenly feel like I am trapped in some weird kind of time paradox, where all my present is mixed up with all my past and all my potential futures, my memories, my dreams, my plans, my expectations….It is a dizzying, somehow exhilarating but confusing feeling…..Let me try to explain:

I feel like the past, all the events that I have lived through, the time and the experiences and the feel of the past memories are all cascading down on me, like a waterfall of nostalgia and regret, they are getting all mixed up and jumbled together with my present day set of circumstances and totally affecting my future choices, all at once, all right this minute!…

I am seeing old familiar faces, hearing old conversations and remaking old decisions, all inside my head, of course, and yet at the same time I am living my present day life, and trying to plan my future life too, again all  inside my head….It is starting to get crowded in here!….

It is not like I am being overwhelmed by these feelings, it is just like a cold shower of sensory overload, reality slamming into my fragile psyche, it is almost like an information dump, although I did not request it, it is here and I need to deal with it, to somehow figure out what is happening and why….It is like being on a walk on a normal sunny day and then suddenly getting drenched by a shower, all unexpected, not necessarily unpleasant, but not like I am “Singing in the Rain” either….

I can remember with vivid clarity events that happened years ago as if they had just occurred, and then I have to STOP and remind myself that that was then and this is now, somehow my future is entwined with these twin realities of the past and the present in a more deeper and significant way than ever before…I know realistically that of course my past has led me to this present state of existence, this “nowness” I am feeling so intensely, this “present,” but it has always been that way, that particular self awareness was always there for me….

Suddenly though, I feel my past is infusing my present and especially my future in strange, inexplicable ways… Secret connections and invisible threads previously obscured and cloudy are all becoming clear, obviously visible and tangible in a new and different way, like a veil being lifted… Or like getting a new pair of glasses, allowing a fresh take on familiar things….

Perhaps it is just some kind of warning, a self defense mechanism, to remind myself that the present is all that we truly have, the past is gone but not done with, the future is cloudy and obscure, there are so many infinite trails that wind their way into the future, each with a different outcome, another result and a new set of circumstances, a new reality to deal with….

But it is like I can SEE where all these future paths are destined to end up now, and I could not do that before…It is like that old Newtonian maxim: “Every action has an opposite and equal reaction” has suddenly come alive in a new way, with the laws of physical science revealing a new outlook on life and the psychological part of the mind, a mixing of the two disciplines… It is heady, intoxicating… yet somehow….potentially dangerous, to be treated with care….and a sense of awe…

They say that you are truly old when your memories exceed your future plans and expectations, when you are no longer “caught up in the mix” of day to day existence on the treadmill of work world, when you have nothing left to do that you had always wanted to do, when you have checked off every item on your bucket list already!

That is most definitely not my frame of mind, I fully and cheerfully expect to live to be a happy and healthy 100 years old and die peacefully in my sleep, but that is a long, long way off in my mind, I have not even MADE my bucket list and I have a million things to do!

I want to express myself creatively through the medium of music, song writing, by writing novels, short stories, op ed pieces, magazine articles, reviews…I guess I am starting that process right now with this blog, but I have always kept a diary of my comings and goings, and my personal, visceral reactions to everything, all of my life, dating back to grade school….

Maybe it is a good thing, reminding me that nothing lasts forever, because each day is all that we are guaranteed, no matter how self important we think we are, no matter how prestigious a job we have, no matter how rich or poor, mean or generous, sick or healthy we are in the present day…Maybe it is just a way for me to step outside of myself and get an objective view, to “see myself as others see me” and that can be a very good thing…

I remember the first time I heard my own voice over the phone and said “that’s not me, I don’t sound like that’ because it was the very first time I had heard my own voice as others heard it, not filtered through my own ears….Or by looking at a bad photograph and saying “That’s not me” but the camera never lies, it cannot, but then anybody can always take a bad picture…If you ONLY take good pictures, you should be a movie star in Hollywood, because the camera “loves you.”

I guess that in the end we are truly the sum of all our actions, but it is impossible to undo the past and so hard to know what the right thing to do in the present is, to make the right choices to lead to the best, maximum benefits in the future…Of course the future doesn’t really exist, neither does the past, except as reference points, compass markings on the road of life, the only reality is NOW, today…

We can’t travel back to the past and alter our decisions, and by the time we reach the “future” it too will become the present….We truly only have today, and need to make the best of each day…

Maybe it’s just that simple, but this is the first time I have seen it with such clarity and force, and it has made me think more deeply about these metaphysical concerns and concepts more deeply than ever before…I would certainly welcome any input from any readers of this blog, and I will post more in my blog on this new found awareness as time goes by….as it always does…..

As Jim Morrison from the Doors once sang: “The future is uncertain and the end is always near…”