““Even if one’s life were a mistake, there is always time to change.”- Henry Miller
The Old Man asked his Wife, " What time do you want to set the alarm tonight?" She replied, "5 A.M. as usual."
The Man remembers that 50 years ago he had told her, "Honey, I set the alarm for 5 A.M." He had laid in bed looking at the ceiling for a while that night and then said out loud, "Honey what are we going to do?"
The Wife replied asking, "What do you mean, what are we going to do?"
"We are 20 years old!" he answered.
"Well, we are going to go to sleep and then wake up tomorrow and go to work!"
"Yes, go to work."
The Old Man had set the alarm but laid awake. He watched the shadows projected on the wall by the propane heater, carefully set by the bed. The shadows would dance every time one of his two cats ran in front of it. He had thought a lot about shadows lately. Out of the corner of his eye, one shadow looked like a human figure with a hooded head, and one looked like a person running as if it were in danger. He asked himself, "Is this THE SHADOW; is this THE ONE?" The shadows frightened him. He stared at the ceiling like so many years ago. He said out loud, "Honey what are we going to do?"
The Wife replied asking, "What do you mean, what are we going to do?"
"We are 70 years old!" he answered.
The Wife replied, "Well, we are going to sleep and then wake up tomorrow!"
"Yes, wake up tomorrow."
But he couldn't sleep. He considered the shadows, his past mistakes, his regrets--unforgiven by himself. He thought of that old rhyme, "For of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these; it might have been." Am I too old? Is it too late to start something new? The old man glanced at the clock and it read almost midnight. He remembered a quote from the cowboy actor John Wayne:
"Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. It comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday."
This inspired the Man and as he drifted off to sleep, he knew that when the sun came up, tomorrow would be a new beginning and a good day!
From the Little Shack, Enjoy a New Beginning!