{"id":254,"date":"2019-01-11T00:39:18","date_gmt":"2019-01-11T00:39:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.christiansdontbite.com\/?p=254"},"modified":"2019-01-11T00:39:18","modified_gmt":"2019-01-11T00:39:18","slug":"outliving-your-own-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christiansdontbite.com\/?p=254","title":{"rendered":"Outliving your own History"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am a huge fan of the show “Highlander”. \u00a0For those too young to remember or if you didn’t watch, “Highlander” was a tv series spun off the 1987 film of the same name. \u00a0It follows a race of people called Immortals. \u00a0They are possessed of something called a “Quickening” that enables them to live forever. \u00a0That is, unless they have their head removed from their body by a sword.<\/p>\n

The series traces the main character, Duncan MacLeod, a Scottish highlander (thus the name of the show) born 400 years ago in Scotland. \u00a0He has lived to, then present day (mid 90s) and has group of immortal friends of varying age. \u00a0He also befriends and falls in love with a cast of mortals as well. \u00a0Each week, there was an immortal bad guy that usually met a grisly, though well deserved, end at the hand of Macleod of one of his immortal band of friends.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

What “Highlander” also did was examine, sometimes in uncomfortable detail, what it was like to live forever. \u00a0To outlive your family, your friends and your own history. \u00a0Many of the characters were fleshed out to look at just what it was like to deal with the grief of not only losing your connection with friends and family, but by doing this, losing your own identity.<\/p>\n

It was a great show and I loved it. \u00a0It spawned website after website filled with fan fiction, and devoted followers. \u00a0I even went to a few conventions and met some of the actors. \u00a0The draw was obvious. \u00a0Put aside the hunky main character, the attractive co-stars and lovely sets and you still have a compelling tale of the immortals themselves. \u00a0The mere mystery and pain of immortality.<\/p>\n

The show resonated with me in a way that no other show has since. \u00a0I longed to step into their world where death, though real, was not something an immortal had to worry about for themselves. \u00a0I longed to have lived in those past times and see the things they did with a bullet-proof, immortal and ageless body. \u00a0But as the show examined and as I have grown older, immortality would be mind crushingly lonely and heartbreaking. \u00a0It is a curse more than a blessing. \u00a0As I have aged, I fave found that living forever, for me, would be devastating.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Case in point. \u00a0I lost a cousin this week. \u00a0She was 58, only 9 years older than me. \u00a0She was one of my first contacts with an “older” girl. \u00a0She became a teenager and dated when I was an impressionable, starry-eyed tween with allusions of Hollywood, fashion and disco. \u00a0It was the 70s after all. \u00a0She handed down dresses to me, played Barbies and was just an older version of what I thought a hip teen was. \u00a0Along with my half-sister, she was a role model of what burgeoning womanhood was.<\/p>\n

She was also the first cousin in my little group of childhood that has died. \u00a0I’ve had other cousins pass, but none that I was as close to growing up. \u00a0Ironically, the last few years- decades really- I rarely saw her. \u00a0I rarely see many of my cousins anymore. \u00a0I guess that is the way things are in our modern world. \u00a0Facebook, is about our only contact. \u00a0That and funerals. \u00a0She had moved away and I hadn’t seen her in probably 8 years.<\/p>\n

I wanted to write how I felt about this, but it has become less a loss of her now as it was then. \u00a0That may sound heartless, but it’s hard to quantify a death when they aren’t part of your daily life. \u00a0It made me think that as I have lost an Uncle this year, an Aunt four years ago, and now her that living brings a sense of outliving your own history.<\/p>\n

Like Duncan Macleod, my life goes on and I drop friends and family along the way. \u00a0The list of high school friends mount and so do others. \u00a0It’s the way of things, I know, but it begs a question. \u00a0Are you the sum of your history or are you constantly recreating it? \u00a0Is life just your memories to be plucked away as people die, or are you continually refreshing what your history is?<\/p>\n

Back to Duncan and his friends. \u00a0Duncan was very sad many times and serious. \u00a0But he was also tender, giving, loving and grabbed hold of life by the ears. \u00a0He recreated his history over and over. \u00a0So did his immortal friends. \u00a0The ones that survived, that is.<\/p>\n

So what can we take from the fabulous highlander and my story? \u00a0Though we mourn the loss of what was and those that made our history, we can’t let it hold us in place. \u00a0One day, it will be our turn to join that ranking of memory. \u00a0We are part of someone else history. \u00a0So grieve appropriately, but always remember what the show “Highlander” taught. \u00a0People are always alive in our memories, but to survive, to live, we need to continually make new history every single day.<\/p>\n

Make your history count. \u00a0Live on. \u00a0To quote Methos, a “Highlander” character, “Live. \u00a0Grow Stronger. \u00a0Fight another day.”\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am a huge fan of the show “Highlander”. \u00a0For those too young to remember or if you didn’t watch, “Highlander” was a tv series spun off the 1987 film of the same name. \u00a0It follows a race of people called Immortals. \u00a0They are possessed of something called a “Quickening” that enables them to live … <\/p>\n

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