Feel better, friend.

Sometimes I lay awake at night and place myself in a fantasy. Wholly unrealistic, because it's fiction provides me a sense of security.  I am 14 again. And let's say, I have this friend -girls name-  And 14 year old me knows -girls name- relatively well, friends and all.  Let's say I ask her out. We start as friends. We go to the mall. We go to the food court. We talk as 14 year olds do.  Let's say I don't screw it up. I present myself the best way a prepubescent boy can. I am polite, I am calm. I am witty, I am neat. I chew my food with the grace of a napkin-dapping moustacchioed gent.  Let's say she likes me, and I like her.  Let's say this lasts for a long time. Long enough for trust to grow.  Let's say nothing awful happens for the next few years. We grow up together,  we grow, together. Let's say we are on a swing large enough for two. And the sun lights up our smiling faces. And everything is perfect and great and wonderful. ...

I am now broken into two. Split right down the middle, as I've been before in the past. But there is no deliberation, or doubt, or despair - this time. Today I see the Dos and the Doesnots. A field of action adjacent to a desolate waste of inaction. And, you know, the same old same old. Bright, uplifting colours on the one hand, and whatever the opposite of that on the other. Always with the dichotomies, the cleavers, the juxtapositions. Coming to you this fall, "Ideals vs. Reality" I see what potential can be done with my time. What joy I can create for myself that would last for more than a day. A prevailing sense of accomplishment that would still greet me in the morning. The voice in my head that would cheer me up by telling me of all the good things I have to be thankful for. I forget it so often, but life isn't all about that blue house on the hill. My blue house on the hill. My comforting pillow that I cling on to. My source of comfort, and nor...