The Beatles Come Back Around

On February 9, 1964, The Beatles made their first American television appearance on The Ed Sullivan show. I was ten years old.

I had been aware of them earlier thanks to radio and was in love, but the experience of seeing them that night - live - changed my life. Or should have.

I knew in my bones that everything they stood for was right for me. Knew it in a way that is indisputable. That rare feeling you get only a few times in your life that you are hooked into the right vibe.

I have regretted endlessly the fact that I followed in life exactly the path that The Beatles - and myself - knew was wrong for me. As I took each responsible step my soul kept nudging me and asking "What the hell are you doing? A suit and tie? Really? An accountant? A mortgage? Deadlines and commitments?"

But I kept going.

One week before I started this new job, Carol and I took a ride to scope out the store and the surrounding area. The store is in a plaza. It is a beautiful liquor store (?) and I love the town it is in. There is an Ocean State Job lot in the plaza and we checked out the joint in a pleasant haze, anticipating a new life for ourselves. There was a concrete feeling of happiness between us. Solid. Unmistakable.

Came across a coffee mug with a picture of The Beatles on it from the Let It Be album. There are two iconic pictures of The Beatles that I worship. The Let It Be pictures, and the gorgeous, glossy pictures that came with The White Album.

Carol pushed me to buy the mug. The damn thing only cost about $2 but I hesitated because I am determined not to spend our money before we have it and I am determined to spend it wisely when we do. I have been so hurt and burned by the last seven years of struggle that I am a cautious animal lurking carefully on the fringes committed to using this opportunity wisely.

Carol knows what is good for me often when I don't. We bought the mug.

I cleaned off the table next to my recliner recently and found - buried - a Beatles book mark that I dig. Started reading the first Jack Reacher novel and one of the main characters is a huge Beatles fan. Has every Beatles recording - all the albums, all the bootlegs, all the compilations.

I have spent the first mornings of my new job drinking coffee in a Beatles mug, using a Beatles book mark in a book featuring a character who is a Beatles freak.

The Beatles have come back around. Forty nine years later. I even started the new job on February 22 which is close enough to February 9 to make the connection.

I am distinctly aware that I have been given an opportunity. An opportunity that if used wisely can make the rest of my life closer to what I want it to be.  Make it easier for me to smile and to enjoy the magnificent family who believe in me exponentially more than I believe in myself.

I have lost myself up to this point. Allowed unhappiness with my life to come dangerously close to snuffing the flame that burns in my soul. That original, one of a kind expression of who I truly am.

I finished the Jack Reacher book this morning and went back to read the author's introduction. In discussing the need for fiction he says "Real life is rarely satisfactory."

That is why I need The Beatles. The Beatles thing is a beacon in my mind telling me that it does not have to be that way. That I can take what they meant to me forty nine years ago and bend it to fit my current situation.

Not as an escape. I need magic and meaning in my life to take the mundane and fire it up into something I can live with. That is the compromise I have to make. The compromise I am willing to make because I will never have the freedom to tinker with my life that John,Paul,George and Ringo had.

But I can take all the lessons learned from fifty nine years on this planet and spice that knowledge with the magic and wonder The Beatles inspired in me so long ago. A feeling, a soul-deep knowing that never died but lurked stubbornly in the wings and sometimes deep below the surface.

You may consider me overly dramatic, but I truly feel I am standing at a crossroads in my life more meaningful than any other.  Maybe even the final one.

The Beatles came back around for a reason. That reason, much more so than the job, is the thing that will give me my life as it should be. Give me the life that I hunger and burn for.

Finally.