The dream dreamed

There is a time for everything in life. There is a time to laugh, a time to mourn. A time for grief, a time for sorrow, a time for pain, a time for joy, a time for love. And time for happiness. Oh, the time for happiness - that one should be squeezed in our overbooked schedules every single minute of every single day. But it's not. There is no time for happiness anymore.

I came to learn after a while that timing is everything in life. Yes, it's true. Napoleon said that he created the circumstances. Perhaps that's doable in war, but not in life, not in love. Forcing circumstances on people that aren't ready could actually ruin forever the chance for a timed-coming-together. Or you can be forever ready, waiting for your other half - like Bartram waited for Henry James' Mercher - and still never come together. What a dreadful but still way too common ending. Then send in the clowns. Because there must be clowns with such a Broadway scene.

The complexity of the "two-halves" theory is that, you too may wait forever in the jungle for the beast. It might never come. You, like Mercher, might not be ready yet. You are condemned while also condemning your other half to the same lonely fate. Timing.

I know that I am sufficient on my own. But there are many things time has taught me over the years. It taught me that wounds heal and scars are there to remind us of the trap, not of the pain. It taught me that the best moments are the ones we share with the ones we love. I see that kind of love. I want it. I don't know if my timing has always been a little off. Or if I played Mercher all along. I just know that I dreamed the dream for so long, that now I wouldn't know how to live without it. I don't know if I would want to. 

...when I was young and unafraid...

I don't want to be sufficient anymore. I don't want to be just functional. If waiting is what I have to do, then I'll do it: I'll be patient for the right timing. But damn if I won't be every bit as happy as I can while I'm waiting. I might even look over my shoulders from time to time, trying to anticipate the moment - I'm only human. But I won't let this quest be the core of my existence, won't let it consume what's left of me. I'm not on a safari hunt. I don't want to be in one. I want the beast, alright. But what time has taught me, especially through books, is that this fulfillment comes from waiting for the beast to come to me, not hunting the beast down.

And so I wait. Because there is nothing left for me to do, but wait.