Dé Sathairn, Aibreán 30, 2005

The edge of the World

I have the desire to write, though again I'm not sure what the subject should be. So please excuse me if it seems that I'm rambling for a while. The past several weeks have been a flurrie of activity. Finishing projects, packing, cleaning, preparing, classes, parties, it's been hard to get a few waking moments just to sit and think. But now I sit in my room, alone in my house, playing the music loudly so the sound fills the room, if not the house. The list of things to do before graduation is quickly waning away to nothing. Only a few more items remain, and I find myself inadvertently suspending them. Not wanting to go to bed, in hopes that the day won't end and tomorrow will be delayed in coming. Trying to hold to the last few precious moments that I have to spend here at college with my friends.

I sit here and think of all that I'm leaving behind, but what about the future. I stand at the edge of the world, and for once the darkness lifts. I don't see it clearly, but...there before my eyes is the trailhead. It winds off into the distance, into the rocks and forest. I can see a ways a head of me, but the trail vears off, and I loose it in the trees as the haze once more envelops it. It's not much, and I don 't think I'll ever see more of my future than that, but it's enough.

I wrote a few days ago about how some times in our lives we just have to jump. I don't know what all of you thought about that. You may be saying to yourself that, no you are able to thing about everything before you make a decision. You may be like that, and never make a rash decision about anything. Maybe you can make it through life and feel completly confident in everything you do because, you thought about it before it happened. I stand here and tell you, I've thought about this point in my life for 5 years. I am about to complet my current task, and soon will be given another one to undertake. It's not about the decisions that I've made to get me to this point, it's about the next decision that I have to make. Do I stay where it's safe? Or do I jump in to the maw that is before me. It's cold, hazy if not dark at times, it's lonly. When you hike, it's the first step that is the most adventurous, the most perilous. With the first step, you lose control of your life. The planing stops, the training stops, and you have only what you know and what you are able to carry with you.

The theory of my life is about to end. The practice is about to start. The great experiment, that will prove to be my defining trial. Sure there are times when you return to the books for more research, but never like this. So I stand at the edge of the world, holding to what I know, to my memories, and training. I stare across the vast expance that is my life and smile, chuckle to myself, and Jump...

A.T.H.

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