Messes and Mermaids' Purses

Oh, the midlife crisis.  That silent moment when you realize that you have quick-crawled your way through half of your walking years, and you stare into the mirror with your apartment life reflecting behind you and you wonder if this if where you're supposed to be.  Personally, I never wonder if this is where I thought I would be, as I've not been in the business of thinking about the future much.  There are benefits to having no plans, not the least of which is never being disappointed about my current station in life.

    And you know, I have been accidentally falling in love with this city for three years now.  I have found, in surprise moments when I haven't been looking, that the city will tap me on the shoulder when it is time to see the heartbreak graffiti that lines 13th street, or the noisy glow inside a downtown apartment at midnight, or the ultimate sense-shock that everything that is beautiful here is beautiful on purpose, and there might be a depth to that which does not belong to the wildflowers. 

All of that, but I still walk barefoot through green park grass. 

    I have said it in the past, and I believe to the very core of myself that we, as creatures, are not so evolved that we don't need to feel the wind.  We need the sun, we need to stretch our arms out to the falling rain, we need to watch the clouds pass, we need to say hello to the dragonflies because we are the same.  

  And that is the trouble with this city life, I think.  Or at least it is the trouble I am having,  

  I am not meant for a life lived indoors.  My argument would be that none of us are, but I'll skip the self-righteousness, and just say that I am not mean for a life indoors. So, there is my crisis.  Its bricks are twilight ambulance sirens that drown out the evening crickets,  and its architect is this thing I have climbed into called a career. 

Writing so much and saying so little.  The truth is that I am a mess.  It is my natural state.  I float, irridescent like a soap bubble, from moment to moment, avoiding the gravity that would turn me more solid.  And I LIKE it that way.  I am in love with everything at once.  I make friends with ladybugs and I overwater plants because I'm afraid they're thirsty.  I smile wide with crooked teeth, and I like when the bottoms of my feet are black with dirt because that means I have interacted with the earth today.  My flaws are many, and they are loud, and I work at them tirelessly.  But not the mess.  Not the mess.  I will keep the mess.

  And in the end, if I cannot keep the wild alongside this life of structure and schedules and car payments, then the mess will win, and I will find a breeze to ride back to the ocean, where I can walk the waterline and steal mermaids' purses and feel small.