a Life

How does one tell the story of one's life without sounding either lecturing, pontificating, complaining or bragging? I've tried many times writing about my life and never felt I succeeded in what I wanted to say or meant to say beyond about 10 pages of what to me has been essays on my life. I haven't really found a way to talk about my life that I felt useful or necessary or safe or fully relevant or that told the whole story in a way that I would feel safe with or that I could live with all my children, relatives or friends reading.

None of us are perfect people but it is true I have had an amazing life. People tell me that all the time. No one can believe that I have done all the things I have with my life. I'm not sure that they would understand all the suffering and happiness that I have had to endure in my life to get here either. And I'm not sure what "Here" is either, unless you consider that I"m content in my enlightened and philosophical approach to life. And that I'm relatively happy in my third marriage and that all my biological children have survived and are doing okay. And that even though I have now been married 3 times that two of those marriages have reached 15 years and that only my first marriage(from age 26 to 29) we lived together for 4 years. And stragely enough my first wife and I are still friends whereas my 2nd wife I was married to for 15 years and I never speak for about 5 to 7 years now by her insistence and mutual agreement.

Dad died in 1985 when I was 37 and helped perpetuate the end of my second marriage because I wasn't old enough to sustain that marriage after my father passed away.

What is the value of a life or a lifetime? I suppose it is different for everyone. A life can mean a million or more different things to different people and 1/2 million of those things could be in complete contradiction to each other. I guess it's all in one's point of view. But still I would love to write about my life in a way where I could write about all of it and feel it was definitive and could be useful for most people to read. That I have not succeeded in this gives me a challenge and a goal. Whether I succeed at it or not it is still like a mountain to be climbed and therefore gives me something to try to succeed at. So, for now, I write and I practice communicating and developing my craft so that I can help keep myself and others alive and useful and moving toward enlightenment, peace and happiness: a worthwhile ongoing goal that keeps me alive and constantly lengthens my life.