I Climbed the Tree to See the World

It's the middle of the night and I so desperately wish I was asleep - school tomorrow, tests, pressure, expectations, smiles, etc, etc - how badly I want energy for all of it. Alas, I am awake, and it is one of those strange moments in the 24-hours where time has no business controlling me, and I am free to think outside of it. 

After closing my eyes for the third or hundredth time, I allowed myself to think about something that terrifies me, that I refuse to think about and refuse to acknowledge: old age. While usually I get sad and fearful at the thought of the very old, I found myself smiling in wonder and awe. These people did it, they did Life, they made it this far; in one of those strange moments where you let your imagination shamelessly wander, I found myself shaking hands with an old person like a celebrity and saying, "Congratulations, can you tell me all about it?" When I sensed that I was okay at this point in my train of thought (I, for the first time ever, did not have a panic attack at the thought of being very old), I imagined what it would be like to be old myself, and I got excited at the thought of having so much to think about, a lifetime's worth of things to analyze and ponder and change into wisdom. My mind wandered on and I found myself thinking about how "leaving a legacy" after you die is more complex than having children and making sure your genes stick around for a little longer; we leave a bit of ourselves on this earth in a thousand different ways. I thought about how I personally wanted to exist still on this earth after death and I realized that I want to live on in words, in writing. Maybe on this blog, maybe in a book, maybe in letters I will hide all over the world for someone to find. Anyway, I'm rambling now, but this is the way of my thoughts and who am I to tell them to stop and pull themselves together at this hour, huh?

If you ever find yourself awake the way I am, maybe you can think a little bit about Life with a capital L, where you'll be and what you, just you, want out of it. Maybe you'll find, like I did tonight, that it's so much more complex and a lot less harsh than you thought. Or maybe you'll get lucky and fall asleep before it all comes crashing down on you like feathers, saving those thoughts for another bittersweet sleepless night.