Dying Midwestern

At its’ heart, it was a noble adventure. It had been the brainchild of wine, then whisky then beer, then back to whisky and closing with wine, a virtual palindrome of alcohol. I had given myself the task of writing down all of the tasks that I wished to accomplish by the time that I turned 40. Actually, it had started off with by the time that I turned 30, but being a realist I scratched out 30 and replaced it with 40.

Dancing like lollipops through my head were trips that I wish to take. I want to inhale the sweet meditation of Mount Fuji and breathe in the thick air that satiates the rambler’s soul that surely resides there. To find nirvana on a crowded street in Tokyo, an individual soul lost amongst the masses with music pouring through my veins as my Zen. To fall in love, on the skyline of Manhattan while cradling a girl that is leaning out of a balcony on the top floor of a hotel overlooking Central Park. To feel the exuberance of living in England again, the benefits of not owning a car or a TV and receiving all of my culture from the pub down my row. To read 100 books then 1000. To match dreams with paper and become a writer that puts down words that would last for ever and by doing so, endeavor to become immortal in the heart of some yet unborn child.

But then Little B and I sat down and the paper stared back at me. I didn’t wish to put anything down upon this fresh page, these selfish plans that I hold for myself. This wasn’t out of fear but because the ideals that I wanted to put on it weren’t mine. These were dreams, dreams that I hope will allow me to taste the infinity that my heart so greedily churns for in every passing beat, and in the end they are only dreams and bring me no closer to that which I crave.

Instead I found myself writing ‘to live life’, to be that beautiful dreamer that could find these ideals without seeking them; to let the infinity find me. The moments that find a person at two in the morning when the ugly lights have come on at a local bar being after they’ve been wrapped too tightly with somebody in an intriguing conversation. To suck that marrow out of a life that is tasteful only to those that allow it to come to them.

I tasted what the infinity could be and looking down at the page I accepted my dream and knew that I already had written too much. In that instant the words of Polonius struck me yet again:
“This above all: To thine own self be true