Sat, Nov 10, 2001 2:13PM -0600

So EMACS sits open waiting for me to type something, but I don't really want to type anything, and yet I feel like I should (Oh by the way, happy birthday dad.) But a lot of things have been happening around me, not really to me, for which I really ought to be grateful, and yet these events traumatize me nonetheless, and I really don't want to talk about it even though I can't seem to think about anything else.

But my sister nearly died yesterday, crushed between two big rigs on the Santa Ana Freeway, and the very idea of it seems completely ludicrous, and sick bastard that I am, I can't help but wonder how many inches, how many degrees, how many newtons away from the end she came, and still we forget how fragile life is. But she is walking and sarcastic as ever, though aggravated by the pain. Oh boy, it makes my stomach curdle, but it's done, she made it, you can't let fear incapacitate you, I suppose.

If anything, I should realize the importance of the future, and even more so, how critical the present is. The past is dust. No use turning it over and over, trying to find bits of gold. Whatever you find will never outweigh the sweat and tears of trying to find it. Only in the future can you build. In the past you can only tear down.

Still, it does no good to pretend to be moorless. The past is an anchor of sorts and sometimes it's not good to be adrift and directionless. And yet I dream to throw it all overboard completely.

I do not know what I want anymore. Probably nothing. No, that's not true. I would like to lie here and sleep and think blissful thoughts. To try not to let the outside world break me apart too much, force too much weight on my shoulders. To not get caught up in other people's mad hopes and schemes. To see things I've never seen before, go places I've never been before. To remember what it is to wonder, like a child. To be awed by nature, to be at peace with the infinite emptiness of the universe, to know that I am a small little dust mote, and yet this is the way of things, I am who and what I am supposed to be. To not want. To accept what comes my way and be grateful for it. To be able to love, and to not let that love turn into desperation. To be able to love myself.

I've known how to do these things at one point or another, but I can't seem to be able to remember it, much less do it all at the same time, and sometimes I wonder if I'll ever grow up. But I suppose the Quest has not been laid upon my shoulders yet. That will be the test. I will try to be ready.