I was walking downtown and heard two older men talking one asked of his friend "were you doing astrophysics or astronomy while you lived in Wisconsin?"

I instantly wished that my life would turn out like this man, not in detail but in substance.

It’s been too long since I’ve had a mental breakdown.
I feel it building that a pressure valve.
It’s been too long since I’ve had a good cry.
The other day someone told me it had been a long time since someone made them cry.
I congratulated them
only to realize the same was true for me and I don’t know how happy I am about that.
At least when someone made me cry it meant I had someone who could make me cry.

It’s been too long since I’ve been in love. I mean real love.
Just the other the day I was in love with a girl I saw on the street.
In my head her name was May, like the month but she was sick of people saying that to her.
In my head I talked to her and she talked to me and we went on a date and then another.
She met my parents and at first my mom didn’t like her as her hair was too short.
“How feminine could she be?” my mother would say
My mom would change her mind when May pretended to have the same opinion on some big issue
like gun control or the Casey Anthony trial.
In my head May is such a sweet heart.
We’d be happy for a long time and we’d get married and see the world,
I’d be successful and she would do whatever made her happy too.
We grew old in my head
and then we died in my head.
First she would die of cancer then I of a broken heart.
By the time all this conspired in my brain she was across the street and I decided it wasn’t worth the heartache to pursue her. Yes, it’s been too long since I’ve been in love and was loved in return. Since someone held my hand. Since someone looked me in the eyes and read my mind, my mind worn on the sleeves used wiping the tears of laughter from my face.

It’s all been too long.

You're one in a billion and i know all seven of you.
One of them is me,
one of them is you,
the rest are scattered amongst these other kindred spirits that have found a home in each other.
In basements.
On the beach.
Fireside.
In each other's hearts.
In each other's arms.

Some of the yous work by feeling too much.
Some of us work by thinking too much.
We all come to the same misguided conclusions

So now until the end of whatever amount of time we have together
we sit, us seven, in our circle and do whatever it is we do.
Circling the drain, circling the letters on the multiple choices of life.
I hear guessing c's turns out alright

To write down all my fears would take a book.

My desires even more.

The big problem, however, is where they overlap.

To desire what i fear at least seems adventuresome, almost romantic.

Scary yes, but exciting. Like a roller coaster ride with a fear of falling, like i do.

Adulthood, the scary but most wonderful time of life.

Then there is the fear of what i desire.

That is a whole other beast entirely.

What if my desires are not good for others?

What if my desires steer me wrong?

What if i follow one path when another would have been better?

What if i don't achieve my desires?

What if all these existential, angsty thoughts are complicating things and themselves standing in the way?

What if?

What if indeed.