Big Love

My season of love, to brazenly borrow a song and lyric from the play Rent

Thinking about my time being single since my separation, being the captain of my own ship, I started to quantify the experience. It has been three and a half years.

As each year turns to another, I find myself feeling better, having learned more, and in general just more like me.

12 months in a year

45 weeks in year

365 days in a year

525,600 minutes in a year

“Measure your life in love.”

– Season of Love, Rent

Once I saw Rent, when it was off Broadway. I was young and I know I did not understand it all, but this song stayed with me. Each day, with its 86,400 seconds, or 1,440 minutes, or an estimated 20,000 to 22,000 breaths, holds many opportunities. Why not measure your life in love?

Yes, for love. Or how about in smiles, or laughter, or whatever experience is needed.

Steve Jobs astutely observed that you can only connect the dots looking back on your life. You can not connect them looking forward (Stanford Commencement Speech, 2005). I have come to see the wisdom in this. This is part of what I understand as rebuilding a life.

“Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”

Steve Jobs