Originally posted on Facebook HERE
We went Christmas shopping yesterday – to a mall. We used to love going to malls and shopping for holidays. Now it seems like every mall has the same stuff, the same stores, and it just has this vibe of something that will be going away soon. Not really all that long ago, we’d go into every store, check stuff out, buy tons of gifts and wind up with a pile of our own purchases, too – and now?… many stores we’d just stop in front of, look in, look at each other, shake our heads and walk away. I kinda equate the feeling to back when I was playing in bands and you’d get to a club that was obviously in trouble… the back bar liquor supply would look low, people weren’t going there anymore, and you could feel in the air they weren’t going to make it. That period just before they finally went under. It’s a somewhat eerie feeling. I’m old enough to remember when malls were first coming out – they had record stores, book stores, arcades… yeah. All done by computer now, digitally. People will see something in a store they like then go online to buy it cheaper, too. And this really is life, isn’t it? Everything is always changing. Music in my lifetime has gone from albums to cassettes and 8-tracks to CDs to digital. Movies? Theater only to VHS/Beta to DVD to digital. Your children grow up. The grandkids grow up. We grow older every second of every day. By the time you read this you’re no longer who you were when you starting reading this post, you’re different. It’s in a small way – but we are never exactly the person we were even a moment ago. And time is a sneaky thing. Decades pass by in seconds. The younger you are, the more time you think you have, but death is a harsh reality as we age. And none of us will get out alive. Everything is amazing to me. Everything. Cars amaze me. Indoor plumbing. Electricity. Incredible how we’ve managed to basically equip most of the world with these things. But ultimately, our happiness is dependent on our thoughts, our beliefs, our fears, and our actions. We can let change lead to depression and anxiety or we can embrace it. Blockbuster didn’t embrace change – Netflix did. I hold onto some things that bring me joy – albums, CDs, we still get the paper, I still prefer actual books to digital or audio… but I’m looking at my pile of VHS tapes now and wondering why do I keep them? Really reduced to useless these days. I have a feeling at some point they will stop delivering the paper, too. That will be a sad day for me. Malls have a sad vibe for me now, too. I remember what they were. And with every passing thing in life, something begins anew. All we can do is enjoy the ride. The highs, the lows and everything between. It’s a package deal, and it’s all incredible. This holiday season I’m really trying to get a handle on making sure that love is guiding my decisions. That I’m open to the changes as they present themselves. And that I stay grateful for being here at all.
