Innocence and ExperienceA hard morning and an easier day drain slowly into an evening of no consequence. I am still myself. The sun came back, that petulant flame, and brought with it a bit of clarity. It's more than enough to reattach my head. (The cat feels it is not a moment too soon.) 
There is this thing teenagers do where, emotionally, they live entirely in the present. (Maybe because the past is a bit short of material and the future to date has been so brief.) Every moment is the Only Moment: If you get me those shoes I'll never ask for anything else again. You know they mean it - and why not? It is inconceivable there will be another time and another want to present itself. The Long View does not exist. And so this applies to melodramas, large and small. Indeed, how could any tragedy be "small" when it is the only one in the world? Every disappointment is the the middlepoint for ripples of violent consequence, every crisis potentially fatal. The phrase "I will die" comes up a lot. If you make me sit next to so-and-so, I will die. If you tell anyone what happened, I will die. Those are years spent on the edge of the void (no place for clumsy children to be) and Statistical Improbability has no dominion. I think it's charming, in an insufferable kind of way. Eventually, though, you learn to let things go, let things sit. You learn that there is tomorrow and there is actually no reason to assume it will be the same as today. You learn that you can manage and everything passes and you can probably live with it - or without it - if you have to. Eventually, you learn that.
I mean, I don't, but you do.
g. PS: The cat feels goggles are "undignified". Uppity little beast. | 
