Today

Today I am Philippe Petit balancing on a piece of floss. I inch my way along and pray for a strand of calm between towers of emotion. I have everything to lose with one false step. Don't look down, don't look down. Don't speak. Don't shake the rope.

Today I am a child whose ball has once again rolled into the street. Not just any street, but the Daytona Speedway filled with a chaos of clown cars. I dip my toe into the traffic and make a run for it while everything around me rotates into a dizzying blur of sputtering jalopies. Honk, honk.

Today I am American Gothic and my righteousness weathervane is wildly spinning and pointing in so many directions I don't know where to look. I don't know who to be. Am I the obedient spinster or her stern father? Or maybe I am the wayward winds, themselves.

Today I am frail and elderly. I am breathing my last and realize that nothing but this singular moment matters. And I wonder why I have just now learned this. Why I have lived for so many long reasons yet never the right one.

Today I am tired. Tired of walking wires, and dodging cars and pitching forks and dying.

Excuse me while I suffocate

My throat feels like it's collapsing and I don't know why. I'm not stressed. I'm not sick. No panic attacks.  Just feeling so heavy.

So heavy I can't breathe.

That's a bad sign, right?