30, or A Frazier-Inspired Birthday Reflection

Turning 30 today, I'm aware of my own mortality. Maybe its due to the fact that I've been giving Laura a hard time about being 30 (she is 1 year and 5 days older than me) for a solid year now. But now that I'm half-way to 60, which is half-way to 120, it takes on an all-too-close-to-home dimension.

I'm reminded of a great pair of lines from Frazier. Lillith is in town in Seattle for a weekend and she and Frazier wind up wondering what life would have been like had they not divorced and Frazier moved to Seattle. Lillith's poignant line is (essentially): with one hand the past pushes us forward and with another it pulls us back. In another episode, after his near-death experience Niles lives with such caution that he fails to really live. He is too afraid that he could go at any moment. Martin's comment to him is (essentially) that you never know when your time is up, so you live each moment to its fullest.

How true. I don't want to waste my life agonizing over what I could have done or said differently, or what I will do with what vaporious days I might have left. Frazier's wise response (essentially) to Lillith is that their experiences, both good, bad, wise, foolish, whatever, have "made us who we are and brought us to where we are."

With one hand the past could paralyze us, but we must not let it. With another hand the future could beckon us to an ever-elusive possibility, but we must not let it. Instead, let us be chastened and taught by our past, have joy in the moment, and be hopeful for the future.

Grace and peace.