For No One. Really.

Because sometimes I think I don't do nearly enough of it.
Yes, I take things in.
I read endlessly.
I hover over obituaries in the New York Times, the long ones, of the famous, of the absurd, of the quirky, of the unknown.
Of the unique.
All as if I'm trying to figure out "how do I live?"
With all this fear, or with the absence of it.
With all this love, and the still-elusive security it has yet to bring.
With all of these dreams, still un-named even to myself.
And how, how, how, do I ever try to encourage them to 'come true' when I need to do my taxes and
spinning's at 6:30, and I've got to make it on time...make it on time (just like that crazy U2 song "Zoo Station". That's what my life feels like lately. A zoo. With trains. I am just missing some of them).

I had a moment in the bottle store last week (don't laugh, I really did).
I was browsing through the champagne section, a tall wall of bottles with colourful foil wrapped around their necks, picking one out for my sister and I to drink "just because" it was going to be Saturday night in two days and we live five minutes from each other and the kids can watch Scooby-Doo and eat garlic bread as an appetizer while we pick at breaded stuffed clamshells and pop open said bottle.
I stood there, blinded by all the choice, drifting past all the bottles, looking around the empty store (it was just before the after-work-Thursday crowd), and I thought, if only I had time.

Time to get it all done.
By all I mean really write that book outline at home, at night, on the couch, instead
of constantly reading what others are writing and saying, quietly, to myself "I can so do that".
Time to slow down. To remember what it's like to just "be" instead of thinking about the taxes
and the immigration paperwork, and what my husband and I will have to sacrifice to be together in the same place, finally, for good.
Time to really look around. Like on the weekends when I live what I like to call my "real life" where I run, and read, and cook really nice meals, and my laundry gets folded. And I look into my weekday, workaday life with real wonder. How DO I care so much about kitchens? Why DO I strive to meet near-impossible deadlines with the zeal of a true convert?
I don't have an answer.
Part of it lies in the expectations I set up for myself, the bargain I made with myself a long time ago (don't disappoint us).