lucky

This week I came to understand the nature of my life and its twists and turns.

I always figured that "lucky" people were the ones who always made money in Las Vegas, or ended up picking up the hot girls in bars, or ended up inheriting a tidy sum from a distant uncle.

What I've come to realize is that the things I listed above are forms of luck, manifestations (if you will) of different types of fortune.

But to be lucky in the true sense is to be thrown back and forth between the opposing poles of good and bad circumstance, eventually finding the even path and regaining one's balance.

In that regard, I am truly a lucky person. And my good luck is always offset by bad luck, because that's how my life is and always will be.

I am lucky because I have never been out of money, and even though I am not rich on the other hand I've never been destitute.

I am lucky because I have a roof overhead that's cheaper to rent than most and is located in a quiet neighborhood. For what I pay, I have more space than some of my friends who pay more for approximately the same square footage.

I am lucky because, even though I am not in love or involved with anyone right now, it is better to have loved and lost than to not have loved at all. Plus, I know the next time I fall in love it will be meaningful and real, deep and intense. I know this because every time I have ever been in love, it has been all of those things and more.

I am lucky because I have a family that cares for me and would help me out if I were really in a jam. Their love is unconditional, but at the same time it helps that they have never had to shake their heads in disgust at my behavior. For all of my partying and excess and criminal posturing, I am relatively a saint in their eyes. I have never caused them grief or heartache, and they even worry about me because they feel that I am too sensitive and "soft" for this world. But they trust me, and when I am down they are there to help me stand up on my own two feet again.

I am lucky because I get to do what I want to do every day, for the most part. Someone might say, "Well, you can't afford to just buy a plane ticket and fly to Europe" but to that I reply "That's because maybe I really don't want to do it that badly." And that is the truth, because if I really did want to go to Europe, I'd make it happen somehow. If it was that important to me, I'd quit the job and scrounge up the money and just go without thinking of anything else.

I've done it in the past with other things, and I still possess that insane edge, that fearless ability to take the risk and gamble on myself because there is a goal in sight.

And sometimes the gamble doesn't pay off, but more often than not it does pay off.

And that's why I am lucky.

And that's why I am glad to be alive.

Have a great weekend, folks. Watch the Oscars, make love, do whatever it is you have to do. Live your life as if it were the greatest adventure ever experienced.

On that note, here's one of my favorite Dylan tunes, a song that captures the lucky feeling I get when I'm living my life and loving it.