What Lies Beyond the Forest

It's just a feeling. A persistent and unyielding sense that in a year from now, everything will be different. And frustratingly, I don't know why my brain has settled on the Fall of 2007 to be the point of impact for the life changing metaphorical meteor that I've created.

I've created. One very important word preceded by one even more important contraction. I've. Me. This thing -- the meteor, the crossroads, the quarter-life crisis -- I'm doing it. And I know I'm doing it. I just don't know how to stop. For almost the past year, I've been talking about the Fall of 2007 like it's the start of another adventure. I can remember New Year's Eve (yes, I do remember), and I was sitting on the porch to my then apartment. By then it was actually New Year's Day. 2006. And I wasn't wearing a coat; but then I was warm from the party inside and the champagne (I think there will be a rule about champagne at this year's party -- just not sure what the rule will be). And as I sat there, watching the concrete sway beneath my feet (champagne... there will be rules), I wasn't thinking about 2006. And most people would, right? Most people think about the upcoming year as they hope and they dream. They do. But mostly they insist on getting it right. Things will be different. I love that on New Year's and birthdays we all get very centered and very clear about how we're going to be for the next 365 days. But me... I was thinking about 2007.

It's no wonder this year is almost over... that it went by so fast. I wasn't thinking about it. I just kind of lived it. Watched it pass. There were highlights... writing a play (that I'm rewriting), celebrating milestones with Lucidity, going to Texas with good friends, watching friends get married, being on stage, creating in general, finding Apollo... yeah, there were great highlights. But 2007 still seems like it will be so much more important when I look back on my life. But why?

Maybe I just want something to happen. I want to find the crossroads and make a choice -- set down the path for my life and do something with it. I can see it in the distance... it's up on a hill. There's a tall stake in the ground, taller than most men. I can't really tell from here, but I'm positive that at its base the path divides -- a path that's been cut through the field. The field that covers the hillside. Behind me sits a forest... it's thick... but with lots of paths... I've been wandering in it for years. Learning. Living. Exploring. But today it feels like I stepped outside the forest. And the sun is bright, almost garishly so. The field in front of me is tall grass... a few wildflowers decorate it nicely. It rests on this hill that slopes up at an angle that will make my calves ache once I reach the top --- and I'll be thirsty. But I'm going to climb this hill, and reach this stake that's taller than most men. From here it looks like it has two signs nailed onto it, pointing in opposite directions... but there could be more. I can't tell yet. But I can see it enough to know it's there.

And I've been standing here, looking at that stake that's taller than most men, those signs, that hill... all of it for eleven months. The forest is still behind me. If I reached back, my fingers would graze the braches of the trees. But I'm transfixed and not ready to move in either direction. So here I stand. A breeze whips by. It's November, so it's cold. And I know I have to take a step. But I don't know how.

I'm not a fearful person. I clamor for adventure. And yet I am uncertain as to the path my life should take --- and in that uncertainty, is it possible that I'll force myself down a path on a quest to find that certainty that I claim doesn't yet exist? A self-fulfilling prophecy. I feel like something big is coming -- that the point of impact will be the Fall of 2007; but maybe nothing was coming... maybe I willed it. I'm willing it now. I just want something to happen so I'll set in motion a chain of events that will change my life... is that I'm doing? 'Cos last time I looked around, the last time I really stopped and took in the forest around me, I could plainly see that I'm one of the lucky ones.

So what's up that hill? And why does it intrigue me so?