Lately I've felt more than a bit overwhelmed. I may look calm on the outside, but inside I know I must be wearing that same bewildered look as the 96-year-old matriarch in the movie Madea's Family Reunion when she saw all the young people engaged in various acts of foolishness at said family reunion.
Why?
Life. Just ... life. A precious thing, to be sure. But it can be, as my mother used to put it, something else.
Can I get an amen? Anybody else feel that the personal issues have basically teamed with all the gunk going on around the world, and ganged up on us in a concentrated effort to get us to take leave of our senses?
Anyone else wish we could at least get a chance to get over one mind-blowing thing before another springs up?
We were given life, but, granted, we weren't promised it would be a rose garden, and so often, it isn't. Life can be full of Mondays and rain. It has its layoffs, its firings, it's "Don't-call-us-we'll-call-yous." It can be rife with unpaid bills, shut-off notices, and more-month-than-money situations.
It's full of people who cut you off in traffic or lambaste you in message boards or cuss you out. It's full of people who would rather talk about you than talk to you. It's full of adults who don't act very grown up.
Life often involves sitting on the sidelines, trying not to envy those who seem to live the life of Riley. It involves sittin' on the dock of the bay, watching the tide roll away ... or, shoot, wishing you could carve out a moment or two from your over-busy schedule to sit on the dock of a bay and watch the tide.
It's about sports-turned-moneymaking-enterprises, complete with allegations of athletes doing the unthinkable in order to be victorious.
It's about the stupid car that won't start and the stupid lawnmower that won't start and the stupid computer that won't start. It's full of bosses and ruined vacations and failed marriages.
It's our apprehension of opening a newspaper or turning on a television because we're afraid of the bad news that is going to greet us ... headlines about ISIS and shootings and natural disasters and disappointing actions by favorite people.
It's "Amazing Grace," played on bagpipes because someone has died in the line of duty. It's "Precious Lord," sung by a Mahalia Jackson-esque singer because innocent blood was shed.
It's times like these that we have to remind ourselves that life can still be awesome and exhilarating.
It's stopping and smelling the roses and the azaleas ... and, when winter seems to have gone on forever, the daffodils. Its essence can be heard in the gurgle of a baby or the cries of a child as he makes his first home run, touchdown or basket at a youth sporting event. It's fried green tomatoes and sweet tea and casseroles and peach cobbler. It's old-fashioned snowball fights and hot chocolate. It's a beautiful sunset, whether it be from the vantage point of a highway, a cabin in the woods or a boat on the water.
It's a new high school or college graduate, tossing his cap up in the air. A grandparent, passing oral history and the wisdom of the ages down to someone a few generations down the pike.
It's dancing to Motown oldies. It's traveling Arkansas, or Route 66, or the Appalachian Trail. It's traveling beyond the country's borders and seeing how the other side of the world lives.
Life is the story of the joy that comes from helping another, the relief and the gratitude that comes from being helped. It's "Amazing Grace" on the bagpipes and the singing of "Precious Lord," appreciated by the beauty of their sound. It's the ability to heal from the deepest wounds and the power of pleasant memories.
It's the realization of the fact that yes, many of our problems are "First World" problems.
Life has its Maalox moments, as I like to call them. But as bad as things get, as dismal as they may seem, most of us want to live.
So we should live and let live, right?
We should do more than that. We should shape other lives, positively, by the way we live ours. We should cherish the journey, no matter how rough that journey may be. We should do what we can to enhance the lives of others; the favor will come back to us, whether or not our beneficiaries are the ones who become our benefactors.
"Is this what we paid for?" asked the 96-year-old Madea movie character of the young relatives who weren't living their lives in the best ways. We didn't pay for the craziness life brings us. But we owe it to ourselves to transcend it.
hwilliams@arkansasonline.com
Style on 06/28/2015