Can't live with Her/Can't Live Without Her

Change is a questionable mistress. She is most certainly monogamous, she can be repulsive, refreshing, wantonly seductive. Her constancy is what makes us comfortable with her, like someone you’ve dated for so long you don’t know how to live without the person and you’re not sure if you can distinguish between a healthy or unhealthy dependence anymore. You’re not sure where to sever the cord. The only difference between change and a lover is that you can’t be loosed of change. The final results of such a prospect are much more grave than getting back a black t-shirt. She is the girlfriend-turned-wife by common law until death do you part.

I’m not sure what it is that I should or shouldn’t want. I’m not confident in my ability to decide what it is that I actually truly need. There are ideas I’ve held onto for so, so long. There are dreams, too. But how am I to know what’s best for me? People say to do what makes you happy, but happiness is temporary. People tell me what I need is joy. They say joy is constant, and to them I reply sometimes. Unless I don’t understand what joy truly is-that could very well be.

I wonder how important it is that I figure out life by the age of twenty-five, what I’m doing, who I’m with, how I’ll pay for my daughter’s wedding, where I’ll retire. I wonder if anyone ever has it figured out or if, as we get older, we only become more content to endure the uncertainties and constant fluctuations of circumstance.

posted by Cameron Lawrence at 23:11