"I Will Follow You Into the Dark" Death Cab for Cutie

At 15 I thought by 17, for sure by 21. By 19 at 25, which I knew was the age when they'd let you rent a car without a youth fee. By 23, I had glimpsed it, and the murky photograph, worthless to most who held it, reminds me of the way my arm dangled off and dropped the book on the floorboards. It was the second story balcony, and I had no idea what I would face the following day. I read as slowly as possible and fell asleep.

The first thing he said--I believe it was six in the morning--was, "Did you get some?"

I smiled and said no.

We looked older, sure, the red and purple lights of the bar, more forgiving than the sun, which penetrated even the high altitude mist. Yes, you could tell her age if you looked at the skin around her eyes and yes, you could tell from the slack of my face that I probably had not been drinking enough water.

To want something I'm convinced it's a need. To need something it challenges my faith. To say nothing and walk away. When you walked inside that room and felt the heat of a disturbance that had since passed. The residue of movement, the fingerprint of something frenetic. Despite what the untouched bedsheets indicate, you felt--and knew--that something had just happened there.

If life is a sinusoidal wave, and amplitude is the degree to which we allow ourselves to feel. If the x-axis paid close attention to the years 15, 19, 23 please add 27.

"Warning Sign" Coldplay

It's funny how things creep up on you. Nowhere in my Excel worksheets did I plan for something like this, and that's why I know God favors irony in delivering his to-do lists. I've made a decision that has been long in coming and it brings a great deal of relief as much as it does a new array of fears. It's these times that count, when you're up against something that you can't wrap your brain around, with hidden dimensions you can't anticipate, with unmapped pitfalls. The sudden loss of breath, the caving in of your stomach. It's these times when you could so easily slip back into the known that you must push on. The onset of fear is a blessing because it tells you clearly which way to go: Don't turn around (it will follow you), don't sneak past it (it's much smarter than that), just walk through it (because that's what fear is most afraid of).

I keep telling myself that permanence is an illusion. Whether or not I did well on my SATs, well we were taught in high school to believe that it determined our lives. What school we went to, what major we chose, which job we chose, which relationships we nurtured and which ones we let go. Perhaps my friend is correct: Past and Future are illusory; Now is the only thing that's real. And I suppose what I need to do now is keep taking each step, one at a time, with relative disregard to where I may be heading, but confident that when each step is made in good faith I'll eventually land in a spot where I'll be fulfilled.

I've done this before, and all the things I keep inside, the secret weapon memories that make me believe that this, too, will turn out just fine.