somewhere in it all is the answers to problems that are also created. i am the mouse looking for cheese. i create a scavenger hunt of objects and feelings to find, while creating objectives to overcome. i will cook for eight people today, meet a prospective new business partner, flirt with a friend, find a time to read and meditate. i have called my family, brushed my teeth, scratched at my arm and gone to the bathroom. i will put on my mask, read the news, look up in a deep contemplative reflection of what it means to live and get on with my punch list.

at the same time i am trying my best to forget. to undo the years of habits that stand in my way of moving on, i will not urge or think too hard, i will try while not trying. i want to remain hidden while standing out, i want to be significant without working too hard, i want what is mine but also what the others have. i keep peering into the meadows afar, the mountains on the other side of the highway and wishing to to be at two places at once. i am falling apart, moments to go before the day starts darkening. it is all starting to fade.

i remind myself that i cannot take any of it with me when i depart. that all the objects, photos, memories and mementos will be left, along with my body when the long sleep comes. it makes me want to look at it once again. at the home i have built, the friends i have collected, the posters, nicknacks and the times that were so good. collected memories and moments that i can recall at once but forget as easily. let the noise die down, the energy lessen, moments of contemplation will replace this urgency to chase my tail. moments of me and my breath await, where the noise and stuff come and go, people and places just memories that come and go and have no place to linger. just myself and the universe, with everything and nothing attached in a paradox of light and darkness where memories and objects push and pull at each other in a huge mirage of here and now.