I am who I am

Do you believe in fate/destiny?

I used to believe in the great man theory and fantasized about perhaps being that man. A life as a twelve-year-old’s fantastical ideas about being a grown-up.

When the world crashed in on me, I whined that my life was fated for pain. In the bottom of the hole is a long way from great men or even great thoughts.

II am not the great man or great villain. Why would I want to be? Oh, for the hubris of youth. Thank heavens I never had to experience the predations of arrogance.

Now I live in the comfort of a fated non-fate. I have been a husband, father, grandfather, and friend. I have arrived here not unhappy. Perhaps that is what I was destined for. No superhero dreams and other idle fantasies of greatness will come true.

In the end, I am just the sum of my sixty-something revolutions around the sun on its third rock. If that is my fate, I am okay with it.