Today Is Life
By Jim Koury
Life is a curious thing. As young children and adolescents, we have this idea that we possess all the time to do what we want. We will never grow old, nor will we succumb to a lot of the negativity that we see our parents endure and fall victim to because life has beat them up. “I will never be like that,” we say. Then one day, with a blink of an eye, we find ourselves in the same position, wondering what the fuck happened!
Time passes so quickly. With the blink of an eye, today becomes tomorrow, passing into next year and decades into the future. Many reach a point where they begin to look back upon their choices and wonder, “What if.” What if I had done this, or what if I had done that? Wondering what would have happened is fruitless and will only lead to more frustration, regret, self-doubt, and pity.
Being gay, I can relate to this even more so than many others. What if I had not come out? What if I had never embarked on a path to becoming the person I was born to be after coming out? What if the spiritual path I set forth upon never happened? I shudder at the alternative scenarios that run through my head.
What we must do is acknowledge the past, face up to our failures, and move on. We have no choice but to live for and in today, for today is the only thing that matters. The choices we make today will influence the direction of our tomorrow, not our past. Being in the closet is one of those choices and a changeable part of our past! Being in the closet can be mired with self-loathing and doubt and create a feeling within that we do not deserve the best in life because of who we are and the need to keep it a secret. We cannot move forward if stuck in such a self-degrading mode of thought. Self-improvement is impossible as we continually tell ourselves we are not worthy of being a better person because we have ingrained in our heads that we are less than worthy because of society’s judgment of those who are different.
I watched an episode of CSI-NY one night – the show’s final episode after nine seasons. The episode was entitled “Today is Life.” In the final 5 minutes of the episode, Mac Taylor reflects upon his life and life generally because of a murder that he and his team had been working on. An innocent man died because of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Mac Taylor was quoting the deceased man and espousing what he said as his truth and that he would never forget what the dead man said: “Today is life. The only life we are sure of. Make the most of today.”
Today is life! It is the only thing we have that will shape our future. Take charge of your today and make the necessary decisions to have the future you wish to have. Our destinies are in our hands – no one else’s. Don’t waste today; with a blink of an eye, today will be gone! The only consolation we have is that tomorrow will be our new today. We awaken with a new opportunity every day to do what we need to do to shape our futures as we want them to be.
Striving to live our truth and taking charge of today is not a unique experience. We all have a truth that needs manifesting, whether straight, gay, or otherwise. However, being gay presents a unique set of circumstances and adds more complicated nuances to living one’s truth. A truth that is still mocked and degraded by many in our society. For many, remaining in the closet and not living their full potential as who they indeed are is a much more palatable option. I find this sad, and I thank the universe with all my heart for daring to scrap the fabricated world I was living in.
When I look back upon my life as a closeted individual, it was full of so many contradictions because I was creating a façade to cover up my true essence, who I was, due to my fears and insecurities related to my homosexuality. As I mentioned in prior articles, the “covering up” process began in grade school. I knew there was something inherently and profoundly different about me, and it, even then, created some level of tension within myself.
As I got into Junior High School (now called Middle School), the “cover-up” really began in earnest since it was when puberty hit, feelings began to stir inside, and hormones started to flow. I knew then I was different with my hormonal urges not directed to the girls in my class but to the boys. This knowledge of being different frightened me, and in the ’70, you did not express such feelings outwardly. Still, then again, I was nowhere near the point of coming out, so I just trudged along the way I was and buried feelings and created more contradictions within myself.
I felt more liberated when I got to college, surrounded by new people, places, and opportunities to explore my hidden orientation. I began to “explore” my sexuality in clandestine settings and obscure venues with others of like mind. At the same time, I began to weave a conservative façade to cover up such “encounters” and present an image of myself that was not who I was. I began to espouse positions against abortion and homosexuality and generally embraced a somewhat hard-line conservative political paradigm overall. But inside, I hated it, and more importantly, I hated myself.
I despised what I was outwardly expressing. However, subconsciously, I would espouse a much more liberal perspective on issues, my actual viewpoint. These contradictions did not go unnoticed, so much so that my roommate in college once told me, several times in fact, that he was my best friend and that he knew me well, but at the same time, he didn’t. He would often tell me that I was a person of contradictions.
What drove it home, though, was one night while we were partying, and we were pretty drunk and high, he looked at me and said, “You know, you are living in your own private Idaho.” I looked at him and said, “What are you fucking talking about?” Inside, I KNEW what he meant. He had me pegged and was beginning to decipher and sift through the façade.
“Don’t let the chlorine in your eyes.
Blind you to the awful surprise
That’s waitin’ for you at
The bottom of the bottomless blue blue blue pool.
You’re livin’ in your own Private Idaho. Idaho.
Get out of that state.
Get out of that state.
You’re living in your own Private Idaho,
Livin’ in your own Private Idaho.”
I was in my own Private Idaho and beginning to jump into the pool. I was awakening to the awful surprise of who I was and became very aware of the contradictions I was living amongst that I had created myself. I lived in my own private Idaho for many years, but along the way, I began to shed some of the contradictions and began to align myself with who I was beginning in my late 20s when I finally admitted to myself that I was gay.
I was not ready to jump off the cliff and fully come out. I continued living my life as a little conservative Nazi, espousing hateful positions and creating more inconsistencies within myself that drove me crazy. My then-sister-in-law once told me that she didn’t like me. That hurt me and removed another tether of the life of contradiction that was tying me down.
I beg you all to take charge of your today. Please do not succumb to the life I lived. Easier said than done, yes, as I ignored pleas to change and be who I was, too. We cannot do it until we are ready, but I say this from the point of having lived through it. I assure you that when you take charge of your today and begin to live your truth, all will be fine. You may not realize it initially, but it will be.
At some point, we do run out of tomorrow’s. Many face the last tomorrow and can no longer shape the future to make a substantive difference to the reality of their existential condition.
What will be your choice? Will you decide that “today is life” and be proactive and change your life’s path for the better, or will you put off what needs doing today until you have no more tomorrows? I implore you to choose the former, as the latter is not appealing. It will only create more suffering and needless regret until the day you pass into your spiritual realm of consciousness once again.
Jim is the author of two books, Unredacted and Soul Journey, and also publishes an online publication, Diversity Rules Magazine. He resides in Upstate New York in the city where he was born, with his dog Lina and cat Critter.