Monday, April 06, 2009

A quarter to prince

It occurred to me...having recently chatted with an old friend...I've added little to the wheelbarrow of life in the 25 years since we last met.

He now has children and a wife and must take his vacations at places we would never have considered. Like theme parks and other venues for cotton candy and stuffed whales.

I on the other hand can call my time my own. I wake when I want to, go where I want to, see whom I want to, or not. I can choose in day or out day and dinner in or dinner out day. No one is waiting for me to cook something, fix something, read something or say something.

That alone says something. Perhaps I needs to be loadin' them coals.

Perhaps the fact that I have a load of nearly exactly the same size as in college is not the ultimate life experience, particularly when that life does not also include European travel, Ibizan lovers, and the Safari Surf School. Perhaps that sense of persistent disquiet is the result of nothing weighty tying me down.

Yet the words -- tying me down -- still make me queasy. The big life fear that relationship is tossing yourself away in handfuls is a very real one. What if I get stuck with a lemon I say to myself. What if I get the Mazda Protege of men? The kind of guy no one will take off your hands?

Squeak, squeak go the wheels of my barrow.




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