The magic, the glitter of the new, the moment, the flash, always scuffs around the edges, fades, grows shadows, and reality takes its toll. With the frenetic energy of wonder comes the slippery, sliding dark, reminding us all that we are transient. Creatures of impulse and desire.

We are never as good as we think we are. Never as bad as we blame ourselves for being. The universe is a promise of surprise, the shock that comes with the unanticipated; like the hidden light bulb flaring to life.

Souls are too old for consciences. Our bodies, with their fragility, their senses, needs, keep the soul from straying too far from acceptability. Except when the soul is strong. Except when the body falls to frailty, overcome with the soul’s tsunami of a rush. A push. A fleeting backwards glance that maybe never happened.

How many people feel the way dogs look when they eat peanut butter about their lives? Stuck in an existence that they don’t know how to quantify? How many people forget that life *doesn’t actually* have rules about dreams, hobbies, and aspirations? That if you want to get on a bus at 2am, drunk on friends and cheap beer, that will drop you off in some little dustbowl town in the western part of the country, you can do it. That if you wake up one day and decide that, heck, you don’t like sitting in a chair at a desk for eight hours a day, you don’t have to do it anymore. If you’re brave enough. 

Life is way too short to take it slow. We only get one of these things. It isn’t a situation of circling back to the store after buying a sweater you’ve decided isn’t a good fit. We can’t return to the life store when we’re 98 and say, “Well, actually, I don’t want this life anymore. I took it too cautiously and I’ve shopped around a little and I’ve found this other life that would have me on a sailboat off the coast of Chile looking at stars. And I think I’d rather that one more.” That’s not how it works. It’s hard to grasp that. 

I certainly feel the pressures of social and cultural expectation. And the funny thing about those expectations is that I’m not even sure they actually exist. Like, they might only exist in each of our heads. Because to be honest, I don’t really care what you’re off doing. In fact, if you’re a wandering busker who lives in an old VW bus, I’m probably jealous of your self-imposed freedom. I shake my head at the people who live by the 9-5. I’m skeptical of their happiness. Those lives seem like half-lives. And yet, that’s almost exactly what I’m doing. As a master procrastinator I keep being like, “Oh, I’ll have that adventure at a more convenient time.” As though life is going to suddenly pause for my benefit, “Shit. Mica’s gotta get that adventure in there somewhere. Better take a break on hurrying along the bar exam, the bills, the student debt.” The universe is a gift, but only if we go out and get it.