Day 17,520 Latitude 47.315182, Longitude -122.334663
“I’ve done it this time. Not sure how Mordecai and I will extract ourselves from the fine mess of my own making. Tonight, I’m just hanging on by a thread – praying we both make it through to morning. What the light of day may bring, I cannot know. Just that it will mark the dawning of a new age indeed.“
My 48th birthday was not as I’d imagined. Just moved into a studio apartment with my year-old puppy, I was recovering from a knee-dislocation which limited my ability to navigate the stairs to my second-story unit and frankly, the world at large. Twice divorced, having just wrapped on another unsuccessful relationship of six years, no finances to fall back on, in a job I didn’t hate but didn’t love…I looked around at the still-packed boxes and wondered, how did I end up here again?
The First Hundred Years Are the Hardest
In the span of a century, you will have most of your “firsts”, lose most everyone and everything you know and love, and experience changes in society, technology, spirituality, and personal growth. You can imagine what the world will be like.
Same goes of course for the second hundred years, but let’s face it…there’s nothing like your first. The possibility of extreme longevity – based on science, not science fiction – led me on a journey to reveal my own soul contract. Thankfully, I was only at the half-century point, although the proof had been staring me in the face for twenty-five years. Every journey takes as long as it takes.
When I was twenty-five, I made my first trip to the Cayman Islands. I’d grown up in Florida and had a deep love for the ocean. But it was my brother’s birthday cruise that beckoned. A poignant trip – as he had been diagnosed with HIV at age twenty-seven. The doctors had given him six months to live, and he was defying those odds at all costs. So, we went to celebrate life in the face of death. I suppose I should have known the trip would have larger implications for us all.
During our stop in Grand Cayman, I bought a colorful souvenir that reminded me of all the laughing, beautiful, happy island vibes – a mobile made of colorful geckos that danced in the breeze. Painted all manner of neon pinks, greens, yellows, blues, oranges, purples, and yes, even black. With bulging, laughing eyes and curly tails, they were the perfect remembrance of our time in the islands.
Upon returning to Tulsa, my home at the time, I hung that mobile where I’d see it every day. 15 dancing geckos and one giant gecko at the top. Reminding me that there is always light and love and joy even amid sorrow. Or so I thought.
When my brother made his transition two years later, the geckos became even more precious to me – as he had always been full of laughter and joy. I carefully packed them through dozens of moves, relationships, marriages, and break-ups. Always there to cheer me up and cheer me on.
But the year I entered my Chiron return, as I approached the mid-century mark, I realized those geckos had been much more meaningful than I’d realized all the years they’d kept me company. Beyond the dancing and joy bringing, they represented nothing short of my Soul Contract…the very reason I had incarnated to this life at this time. They held the secret to the very purpose of my life. Staring me in the face all along…
