Here's to the Dawning of the Age

I, Gary, have just recently had the weight of the world removed from my shoulders. Not to mention the many voices that instantaneously fell silent. In fact, while I'm writing this, I'm beginning to feel a little giddy and I can hardly contain myself. I think I'm actually feeling the need to bellow a barbaric yawp! Are you ready?

YA.... I now know why I am the way I am. I know now why my thoughts sometimes haunt me, and others. I know why I can't seem to get out of my own way, and I can honestly say I now know why I'm bald. I'm an Aquarian! ....WP

I feel better now so please allow me to explain. Just the other day a dear friend sent me the most wonderful gift. It was a site link. This was no ordinary link though. If I told you that this beautiful cyber pathway took me to a magical place, would you believe me? Well it did. It was the bridge that joined together the "desperate", who is played by yours truly, and the "complete definition of the desperate”, as played by a web page.

I'm telling you I feel like I was given a golden ticket with this link; a ticket that grants me passage aboard total consciousness. Wow, could it really be? Would I finally get to yell bon voyage to the many Gary’s who, up until this point, have influenced most of my critical decision making? Would I finally be allowed to shake off the many impostors who have gregariously kept me hostage while tagging along, on my ride nonetheless? With this new found clarity, I think yes. I now know that it's OK to be just plain old me. I have been stamped, approved and accredited.

Oh I'm sorry, would you like to know the web page this amazing link points to? Then take my hand and let’s ride the yellow brick cyber road to a page that fully describes something with such detail, that it drips of understanding. It is a page so full of light that it radiates the warmth of comprehension. The page to which I'm referring is: http://www.gotohoroscope.com/aquarius-meanings.html.

The site, to which this page belongs, fully explains the characteristics and traits of the zodiac signs. I'm Aquarius so it clarifies, for me, what it means to have been born on January 22nd 1972. This is a date that, up until just recently, had very little meaning.

He got all of this clarity from a zodiac sign description, you ask? Believe me I'm totally with you in your skepticism. I mean who would have guessed that a small group of stars, pieced together by imaginary lines, and then cloaked with history, would have been holding the key all along; certainly not me.

Here I'd been thinking that the trials and tribulations of day to day life and the decisions we make there in, followed closely by the interpretations made from such actions, would've been the guiding light to salvation. What a fool I was, we are.

I have to tell you, it is extremely eerie and somewhat liberating to read a description that is so spot on me, it's as if I wrote it.

I guess the main reason for me writing all of this, aside from wanting to share the dead on description, is the strange feeling that this web page has somehow playfully added punctuation to the last couple of years of my life. Now if I may, I would like to go back a little ways to shed some light on just that.

Sometime in my early teens I started questioning my purpose in this world. I've never been much into religion, faith and certainly not into celestial mumbo jumbo of any kind, until now at least. What I have always felt though, is that I had a true calling in life or a niche, so to speak. I've always felt that I had something major to contribute to this world.

Now I have said it before and I'll say it again, in the great words of the late Ted Night, "Well the world needs ditch diggers too". I fully understand that, I do. It's just that deep down inside, even in my early teens, I had this feeling in my gut, a yearning if you will. I felt I needed to locate my true self. I knew even then that I had something to say to the world, or at least that's what my stomach led me to believe. Actually, the way I ate, it could have been indigestion. On the other hand, maybe it was insecurities, even back then. Lord knows I'm full of them still. Whatever the case may be, there was a strong sense of uncertainty that lived inside me. Little did I know that it would govern my every move for years to come?

I can remember, about the time I was thirteen, when I starting making a regular wish. I would make this wish every chance I got. Be it birthday cakes, eyelashes, the breastbone of many birds, shooting stars, three legged women, green clovers, blue diamonds or even spotting an albino basset hound, whatever, my wish was always the same. You name it and I wished on it. Now don't laugh but in perfect OCD fashion, I kept with that same wish for many years. I still use a variation of it today as a matter of fact, minus the three legged women of course.

Now I know I'm not supposed to let anyone ever know of this but my wish was: Please let me find my way in life, keep those in my family free from misfortune and make me wealthy someday. I know it's a triple shot but hey, you got to give a guy points for originality, right?

I truly believe though, that sticking with my wish and staying the course all these years, it has paid off. I have been chipping away at the uncertainty that lives in me and little by little I have been finding my way over the past twenty five years.

I know this to be true because about two years ago I had what I now proudly refer to as my "Moment"; the moment when many worlds collided. Those being, the persistence of a thirteen year old boy, the desperate pleas of a father of two and all that lay in between. (The full description of the moment is for another time so just bare with me). For the first time in my life things were starting to clear up. I got a glimpse of what my purpose was and I liked it.

What I was to understand was that the answers I sought would come in steps, stages if you will. Makes sense really, imagine if clarity came all at once, overwhelmed is what we'd be. Anyway, step one screamed out the loudest and brought about a one-eighty in my thought process. It was simple. I am to love and respect my wife unconditionally. There was to be no flexibility with this one, I knew that. I was to shelve my selfishness forever and show this woman, my soul mate, exactly what she means to me, without reservations and the petty games.

With that in mind, in came the fear that if I somehow didn't get it together, I could loose this woman forever. I suddenly knew, with this as my focus, all else would fall into place. Namely step two, which is for me to be the father that my two beautiful children so deserve.

My purpose in life was suddenly simple. To embrace those two privileges of mine and to make sure that I stay the course. In doing so I am pretty sure everything else in my life would just fall into place. Imagine, soon I can start to prepare for what I am going to be when I grow up.

Well what do you know; my wish has come true, two thirds of it at least. I'm still praying for the third installment; that being keeping my family free from misfortune.

Now who would have thought that one wish, made over and over again, would someday come to fruition. I am finding my way. I know that now. I know this because I am wealthy. I just always figured that wealth meant money.

It's pretty amazing what happens when you let your heart and your brain talk to one another. Suddenly I'm headed for a place I used to wish for and could once only dream about. I'm headed for peace of mind with a dangerous amount of clarity to boot. My life is no longer a run on sentence, for I have punctuation and a golden ticket to prove it.