Can't breathe when I run...

When you are 8 years old on the swing set of your backyard trying to touch the stars with your feet the future seems so different.

It seems different yet in high school, waiting for cars and dates and college roommates.

The future is exhilarating in college. Life is possible and mostly likely to be good and undeniably manageable. When fall air is cold in your lungs, and your heart is free, your mind exploring...

Inevitably life will disappoint. I am sure that somethings will live up to the "indescribable joy" such as children. But the other stuff, the day to day, and self defining stuff does fall short of even the most logical expectations.

I used to follow my heart. Maybe this is just me growing up or some horrible mutation of my true self that rose from the mire of 5 awful years, but I do not follow my heart. It isn't that I was driving and letting my eyes glaze and stretch the road like a fun house mirror and at a signal light 11 miles away I wonder how I got there. No. I know when it happened. I know what it was. Who pushed me. Which actions pealed away layers I desperately wish I could somehow, find on Ebay and spaclke back on (even if the edges don't match up and it isn't quite what it was before).

Maybe it is the bombardment of the New Year, I really hate this time, that has gotten me to reflect, something I also hate, on where I am going. Oh I know where I have come from, that I wish I could forget, even if it required some Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind experiment.

I am not a dark and unhappy person. I actually laugh quite a bit. But there is some sadness in the person I left standing waiting for a bus to where else but Missoula.