Fairground of Life

The term, “The Roller Coaster of life,” has often been used to describe the ups and downs, sudden twists, and ever changing nature of life.  While it has some application to life as a whole, it fails to meet the reality of day to day existence.

For many of us life is a carousel of repetition.  We wake, groom, eat, commute, work, socialise, relax, eat, sleep, and start again.  Oh, there are those sudden milestones, of new love, marriage, birth, illness, and bereavement, but we return to the pattern.

And while this is true of us individually, as a society we too move from generation to generation.  Nations rise, and nations fall.   But we continue like the ever turning carousel.

For some this day to day is not a carousel, but a ferris wheel.  There is still the repetition of life, but it is marked by more regular highs and lows – the daily grind and the holidays,  loneliness and companionship.

I have known all three of these rides, and occasionally as with heart attack and cancer life has seemed like the bumper cars as well.  Travelling along blissfully just to be hit broadside.  When my stepdaughter was hit by a car while at a bus stop,  when my wife was diagnosed with cancer on the one month anniversary of our wedding – these unexpected bangs shake us.

But for all of its rides, life still has attraction(s).  Life is never simple.  Life is a fairground.  Let’s enjoy it.

 

Padre

Tale Weaver – #235 – 8th August – Roller Coaster