At some point in life you need to resolve to do certain things. These things are the corner stones in our lives - the push up to grow - to be more.

I sat at my desk for a long while today, working on too many things at once, just assessing everything I could. Trying to find that "moment" that did this or that to me.

I have a lot of "moments" that I remember.
Watching the sunset under a pier on Lake Erie
Seeing the Eiffel Tower all lit up on a warm Parisian night
Kissing the right someone just at the right moment and that warm feeling that followed

I can list these moments for hours, because I'm not 12 and because - even in my stupidest moments - I've really tried to live my life, and I mean really LIVE it.

Here's a moment:
I was young, maybe in high school, and I decided that I needed to live as many different lives as I could so that I could be a well rounded writer.
Knowing that, how can I be regretful of any portion of my life?

I can't, because every moment that I've lived I've tried to learn from and I can then use those things to have a better story to tell.

A story about knights and princesses, robots and space ships, monsters and heroes, P.I.s and dames in distress, or even the story of a 30 something woman who lives in a suburban town and wants nothing more than to stand on top of the tallest mountain, building, bridge - scare shitless - but so alive that people 4,000 miles away can feel my heart pounding against my ribcage.

I've done the "why" portion of this journey.
Why did this happen
Why did that
Why is this person such a jerk to me now, when once we were so close
Why...

or even what

What happens when we die
What's gonna happen next...

When we die our physical bodies are dropped into the ground and we become a human compose heap and the earth breathes us in through all of it's grandeur and glory. Spiritually I couldn't tell you.
Is there a God? I just don't know.
Why are we here? Probably the nachos - nachos are delicious

But the real question is why do I feel the need to get so caught up on the whys and whats?

When I was driving in my car earlier, making the pilgrimage to Trader Joes in order to buy food that isn't strait death in a box... I was listening to one of my books. I smiled and I laughed and I nodded my head as the author read their words to me, so eloquently, so precise and I wished that I was them.

I wished that I could verbalize how they did
Sound how they did
Put together the metaphors that they did - because to me, in them, I found perfection

Perfection - it's like the Easter Bunny or Santa Claus, it's a good idea but in the end the idea of a gigantic bunny or a old fat dude standing in your living room at midnight really doesn't bring the joy you would think it would.

No.

It would lead you to call animal control (and Ripley's Believe it or Not) and/ or the police.
"9-1-1 what's your emergency?"
"THERE A GIGANTIC BUNNY RABBIT IN MY LIVING ROOM!! HE'S COMING AT ME WITH A BASKET OF WELL DESIGNED COLORFUL EGGS AND CANDIES!! HOLY CRAP!! I THINK HE'S RAVENOUS!!"

...and I know this about perfection.
I know it's not real. I know that it's my Utopia and that I am it's Thomas More - but I still want it.

I want it, so bad.

Then as I was walking around Trader Joe's with a plastic basket on my arm, cutting off the circulation to my hand because I always feel the need to over fill the damn thing and I wondered if maybe I'm missing it.

Missing something.

I miss things. It's what I do. I'm the biggest candidate for "Forest Here" and "Trees Here". I just can't see it. I see the burnt out woods, and the dilapidated trees. I don't see that 140 old Pine that is just beyond beautiful or how the canopy makes the forest floor so lush and like midnight at noon.

When I got to my car and was nearly run over by an 70+ year old woman, I smiled and started listening again.

I have no answers for you outside of, "This too shall pass."
I know it will because time waits for no one, least of all me and now that all the "Whys &Whats" are no longer an issue - this dance with perfection has only two out comes.

I can embrace that it doesn't mean what I'm pretending it does
Or I can just crawl into my bed, pull the covers up over my head and cry because I'm not good enough.

Not good enough.

Every day I want to give up. Every day I want to throw the towel in. Every day I want to FINALLY have all those people who told me I was to stupid, ugly, repressed, jaded, narrow minded, selfish, or ignorant, I want to gather them all into a room and tell them how right they are.

Even though they're not

I suppose this is just another one of those corner stones. One of those moments that I will later look back on as a moment that defined me into who I am, or helped change me into becoming the someone that I really want to be.

You know what I want?
I want to be able to stand in a line for 20+ minutes and not fidget. I want to be able to look around the room and see someone looking at me and not assume the absolute worse.

I want nachos, with extra toppings
And I want to go to bed...