The game of life.

It's interesting how this has all unfurled......perhaps the best way to show what I mean is through allegory.......and so here goes..

As a kid there was a board game called Careers.....

The rules were simple.....we had 3 elements to choose from and with which to make a combination of a 100 points....this combination of Stars (Fame), $ signs (for money) and Hearts (for Happiness) was yours to choose.....

As a young man.....in my late teens and early 20's.... if I were to have picked my combination it would have been heavily weighted with hearts.....and less so with fame and money.....

I believed then, as I do now, in the power of the heart........it served me well.....when I listened to it...

Something happened to me when I was 20.......someone I believed in....someone who held my heart and soul in their hands betrayed me.....like a compass without magnetic north I spun out towards anything else that seemed safe...anything else where my heart was not in play......

In my later 20's, 30's and 40's.....my Careers combination changed drastically......the reasons were as simple as they are complex..... but to simplify.....a collision of many factors perhaps.....it was the 80's and greed was good.....I was kneeling at the altar of perpetual cash and my prayers were coming true.....my Careers combination was one of a life being heavily weighted with $ signs and Stars.......my heart.... was left to fend for itself......

after all ...it had not protected me from what had happened......perhaps my reason...my unfailing intellect would guide me through this game of life.....I could reason my way through the rapids and eddy's.....the smooth passages and the roiling whitewater......I would think my moves through.....each one calculated to build upon the next.....each choice predicated by the opportunities available......or so I thought.....

Each step along this path was one where reason and logic drove me to the outcome...bigger rewards, better  cars, more of...well......more.....

Not once in all this time did I walk to the road and look down a ways.......not once in all of this time did I check in with my heart on a decision......Not one single scintilla of a moment....Not once......save for the birth and life of my daughters....

And I paid for it......

The heart is like a pebble in your shoe......it never really goes away......it can't....so it rests against your heel, occasionally stabbing you with pain, creating blisters and callouses...if for no other reason I supposed, than to remind you its still there.....

Now...in all of these times....I had my share of successes..... and failures.......to be sure

But as I now look back on them.....I see the pattern......just a plainly as one can....... my failures were not failures of the intellect....they were failures of the heart.......a failure to use my heart.....and a failure of not using my heart enough....after all...the heart is a muscle......the more it is used...the more it has muscle memory........the more it is used I found out....the more it is to be trusted......

So here I now stand.....in front of you....in front of me....in front of all who care to listen and look.......and say quite clearly....I am about to make another combination of life that will serve me well as I move forward........My dance card is empty........my Career combination is full of hearts with still enough $ signs to make it worthwhile (fame can wait...overrated) ...so I ask you......would you join me in a dance....long and slow.....punctuated only with tender kisses and a realization that we will never have this chance again.....