Ready or Not

Everything seems radiant with self, and at the same time distant somehow, as if it were receding from him -- moving away in time, while he stays where he is. This must be what it feels like to be dying, he thinks; the world remains around you, like a lover who does not want to hurt you by leaving, but in spirit it's already gone, taking with it the meaning of everything you shared. In truth it is already transforming into a future you will never be part of; and you realize only then that it has been transforming all the time, throughout your whole life, and you with it; and that, in fact, is life, though you never knew, and now it is over.

--The Bee Sting, Paul Murray

A penetrating, insightful passage from Paul Murray's excellent novel (which I am reading for the second time). Transforming into a future you will never be part of. That one stings. And I feel that way myself. I feel on the outside of the life that is unfolding around me. I am already not here. I'm watching someone's home movie. And that right there is how out of it I am--because people don't have home movies anymore, do they. Do you remember the old projector and the white screen on its folding stand? Do you remember having to watch someone else's life? Aware that it is important to them, at least, but that you yourself have no part to play. You are an observer. Or maybe you show up in one or two of the flickering images. There I am, you think. Proof of life. And then it's over. And you realize that as your own life unfolded you should have watched more closely, you should have lived with greater intention, you should have loved more completely, because this, this very short long life, is down to its final ticks; and what is left is nothing more than cliche - -if only I had it all to do over again ....