It Just Happened

It wasn’t something that I had planned. It just happened. After 16 years of marriage I had lost my way, again. This time I was too afraid to leave the stability of my ‘successful’ life so I lied and cheated on my family, as well as myself.

I had become a prisoner that had build his own prison. I knew that I had a lot to be grateful for – a rewarding career, five beautiful children from two marriages, a nice home in a nice neighbourhood and a wife who provided a six figure income – but I felt alone and and taken for granted.

I had difficulty expressing myself and I would try to please others at the expense of my own needs. It was the second time that I felt I was wasting my life living someone elses life. This recognition that this was pattern woke me up. I realized that I was sleep-walking through my own life.

My crisis led to self reflection and an admission that my outwardly successful life didn’t provide me with fulfillment or happiness. My children were my true joy but even they couldn’t make me whole.

At first, my fight to ignore my wake-up call led me to a dis-connected life. I pretented to be happy but I had given up on my search for my authentic self and was miserable.

Then I met an angel, Corinna, who gave me the courage of my convictions. I knew that it was now or never and, so, within three months we started a new life together.

We discovered each other late in life and with her support and love I’ve spent the last 5 years recovering from my ego-driven, priviledged life. She was the only one who heard my screams and understood that I needed time to discover my self.

In March of 2006, my wife and I went to an Iraq War Protest in New York during the last week of our 7 month trip through america in an airstream trailer.

I went to the protest because I believed that the social and economic cost of the Iraq war will impact the quality my life and turn our society into a totalitarian state. I had hoped that the NY protest would be a powerful anti-war message that it would capture the despair and hopelessness that we had experienced in our travels. Instead, I found that the peace movement is asleep and our press is silent.

The protest was a fun carnaval-like family event. There were some memorable signs and slogans, festive costumes and theatrical skits, music, food and sunshine.

The main stream media didn’t cover the event even though with 350,000 protesters, it was the largest Iraq War protest to date.

The festive atmosphere almost felt the same as when I last protested US foreign policy in New York. It was over twenty years ago on a sunny day in June, with a million others.

But it didn’t because many things have changed in twenty years, especially in this city.

The world has also changed, in a predictably self-destructive way that has created both a problem and a denial of the problem. I have also changed. I see the reality as a mature adult, not a wide-eyed young man.

I had all the answers when I was 20 but forgot the questions my the time I was 30. Now, in my mid-fifties, it could see some perspective.

The message of the March protest felt controlled to my seasoned cynicism. ‘Peace and justice’ stopped abruptly at the police barricates and video cameras.

The mainstream media was not interested in the event – one picture with a short tag line covered the event for the NY Times. Some of the other papers, like the Post, had bigger pictures but not much more insight into the event.

New Yorkers were annoyed by the inconvenience and the unnecessary reminder that NY is on the front lines of a new war with no front lines.

I also felt that the organizers had to be creative to get such a large turnout and that they made a deal with unions to get a high membership turnout.

It was discouraging to see a protest with so much energy and hopefulness yet with so little impact.

It was dishearting to see that the participants and the organizers still couldn’t reach beyond the already converted masses at a time when we are sleepwalking.

We have no control over our lives because we lack the maturity to confront our enslaved selves .

The peace movement fails to convince others of the importance of Eisenhower’s words and find a way to challenge today’s wisdom and tommorow’s prognosis.

It is like going to a funeral while the soon-to-be deceased is still alive and slowly moving towards their death in equal strides of enthusiasm and righteousness. It is an entralling image but the real metaphoric bouquet lies bury in the fact that we are all attending the funeral as paying customers, not mourners.

It was this image that struck the despair deeply embedded within my consciousness.

Although we had attended other protests and interviewed many disillusioned patriots, this was the first time during our travels that I realized how invested we all have become in the dreams of others and how much my past hasn’t reflected my dreams.