It’s always bittersweet, the lure of unexplored horizons pulling me away from loved ones and familiar comforts. The future rarely plays out as I imagine which time has certainly proven, but then expectations are really the only fast track to disappointment. There are plans and then there’s the dance of adjusting to a million variables thrown in the path. If everything went as planned I’m actually dysfunctional enough to be disappointed. There is always risk, whether we live a well ordered life or drift in the current of unpredictability. On the scale of excitement with loss of bladder control terror on one end and safe narcoleptic boredom on the other I’m half way in between and ready to move on.
I used to have hamsters. Talk about compelled. They are fooled by a wheel, but set free those little buggers are utterly fearless. They’ll leap off the edge of anything in the dark, bounce off the floor and keep going. Granted their reproductive capacity compensates for occasional fatal error, but one could say the same about humans. Sure, we can switch a light on to see how far away the floor is before leaping off the dresser, we’ve got that over hamsters, but they don’t invent a myriad of failure scenarios in their brain before they leap. The marvel of life is that it is limited, the clock is always ticking and there are so many amazing things to do before time runs out. I’m driving to Los Angeles tomorrow to work for three weeks with plans to travel from there. It’s a long boring drive, not even worthy of the inner hamster talk. My Mom and Dad have a wonderful nurse who comes everyday so I no longer need to be here. I won’t regret the time I’ve given them over the last five years and it will be sad to drive away not knowing when or if I’ll see them again. Rodents have that over us in spades, they don’t do guilt, but they don't live long enough to get over it either.
I used to have hamsters. Talk about compelled. They are fooled by a wheel, but set free those little buggers are utterly fearless. They’ll leap off the edge of anything in the dark, bounce off the floor and keep going. Granted their reproductive capacity compensates for occasional fatal error, but one could say the same about humans. Sure, we can switch a light on to see how far away the floor is before leaping off the dresser, we’ve got that over hamsters, but they don’t invent a myriad of failure scenarios in their brain before they leap. The marvel of life is that it is limited, the clock is always ticking and there are so many amazing things to do before time runs out. I’m driving to Los Angeles tomorrow to work for three weeks with plans to travel from there. It’s a long boring drive, not even worthy of the inner hamster talk. My Mom and Dad have a wonderful nurse who comes everyday so I no longer need to be here. I won’t regret the time I’ve given them over the last five years and it will be sad to drive away not knowing when or if I’ll see them again. Rodents have that over us in spades, they don’t do guilt, but they don't live long enough to get over it either.
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