The Skittering

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I'm going to be forty-one way too soon. I have a migraine, probably from the new anti-everything meds I'm taking, and I feel like life has somehow skittered away from me. I can't say that the skittering is a new thing. It's not. I've known awhile. I just never acknowledged it. Or maybe I just ignored it, pretended it wasn't happening. I'm almost forty-one. I know I said that only a moment ago. But I'm almost forty-one. And there's so much I shoulda, coulda done. I'm not sure why I didn't. Ok, that's not entirely true. I have a long history of laziness and I never seem to have a clear direction. Basically, I meander. I go from this to that and from here to there. I have no point or purpose. I have things I want to accomplish, but they tend to take effort and it's so much easier to float.

Of course, then I end up here, almost forty-one and wondering where the last fifteen or so years went. I wonder about my choices and my non-choices. I wonder about how life could have been and why it isn't. Why I chose this and didn't choose that. Why I am here and not there. I feel like I've missed out on so much and I wonder if it's too late. Forty-one isn't old, but it isn't young either. There are things I can't do and things I'll probably never get to do. Unless they repeal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" quickly, I'll never get to serve in the military. If I don't find a partner soon, I'll never have a wife and children. If that's what I want. Because I'm just not sure. I should go back to school, shouldn't I? Find a real career? I want to learn to surf and play hockey. I want to hike the Camino and live on the beach in Mexico.

Time is ticking and I should probably decide what I really want out of life. Direction. I need direction. Or maybe it's purpose. Either way, I don't have it. And it's not going to happen today. I have this migraine and I'm taking these new drugs and it's all I can do to stay awake. Unfortunately tomorrow I'll be one day closer to forty-one and one day farther from life. See, life doesn't stop for my headache or my sleepiness or my lack of direction and purpose. It just keeps going and going, skittering further and further away from me. I'm not sure what the answer is, if there even is one. For now, I think I'll take a nap and see how I feel in a few hours. Probably the same, but you never know.

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