A Thousand Years.

A few days ago I was over at Dave's and we decided to go for an evening walk. We often walk or ride bikes after supper to burn off dessert. Dave lives in a small town just outside the city and so I find it is more relaxing and interesting to spend my days at his house. Small towns often hold onto their history better than cities, there is not that huge rush to build over the top of everything to make it bigger and so called better.

As we were walking down a dirt road, we were suddenly hit by the smell of lilacs, since there were no houses around I found that strange. When we found the source, I wanted to investigate. lilacs in the middle of no where often mean that there was a house in that spot once. They can be a marker of time, lilacs often grow and spread long after the person that planted them has passed, even for my family, the house is surrounded by the smell and beauty of them, the results of my long passed great grand parents planting them. As we came closer I saw long hedges of them and we discovered an old graveyard. The grave yard is a closed site now, taken care of by the township, almost like a museum piece, with the church and parishioners for it long gone into history. Stepping in almost gives a person that sense of the past. Some tomb stones were so old that the dates and inscriptions were worn off with time, others revealed the past lives. Some were young, babies, little children, or in their early twenties, and reading dates like 1817, 1885 or even 1904 made me think about the young people who never got to live a life. It also hit me that the great loss of those young people would now be forgotten, that the tragedy no longer exists to anyone. Other people had long lives but most passed away in the 1800's that we could see, the older stones no longer give up their stories.

I often stay away from places like this, I find the reality that it deals out can be too hard to carry. I am a person that sees time as measured, and I know what is coming for all of us. I am not the kind of person upon hearing of an elderly person's passing that thinks 'how did that happen, what went wrong' I always think to myself, 'oh that was how long their life was meant to be' and if they live into their 90s, I always think 'well done, that was a good run, you delayed death for a good life time'. I never say beat death because no one can beat it, to me only delay it. Looking at those stones reminds me of a quote I once heard, by who I am not sure but it went something like this, 'when you have been dead for a thousand years, you have only begun to be dead'. That is the heavy truth, we will not get to do this over, time will roll on with out us, we don't get a second chance. I would like to think we move on to someplace else but as far as this life, we will never walk the earth again. I couldn't help think that most of those people's lives ended long before even my grand parents were born. They did not get to do over any mistakes or complete unfinished business, their stories long forgotten and that is something we have to accept, in a thousand years everyone who reads this will be completely forgotten, you may become a date somewhere but unless you become a history shaker your life story will be erased by time.

Where am I going with this, it is my realisation this is why gay people have to accept who they are, find love, start the life they are suppose to live. You only have one shot at this so why worry about what friends or the little old lady down the street might say about you being gay, to the point of missing out on your life. Everyone could take a message from this, gay or straight, why waste your life but as a gay man writing a gay oriented blog, I want to direct it towards other gay people, times are changing in our favour and it is for us to live our lives. One day this will all be gone and I would hate for someone to realize too late they missed out on their true life, as I almost did. I used to feel that way, that I missed out on my life but now that I found Dave it no longer crosses my mind. Now it just feels like I was waiting until I found the right person, also maybe waiting until I was ready for a relationship. I feel content with that because as of now, the one thing that can take the weight of a thousand years off my shoulders, is a smile from Dave.