I will try to measure my life
in codes for digital downloads
and in the many hundreds
of hours I've spent alone.
I don't know how else to do it.
I don't know how else to make it fit.
We never know it's finished
until it finally is.

One day we don't wake up
and we live in fear until it's over.
Because we don't know the
measure of us.
When my life is over and examined
what underlaying themes
will I find present?
And how do I prevent it?

And what of unfinished business
and loose story threads?
Do they get picked up and continued
in some later person's tale
or are they frayed too much for mending?
Am I too concerned with the ending?

Can I map a life to
Campbell's hero's journey?
Is the living as predictable
as a story circle?
It's certainly not as entertaining.
Do we reach apothosis
without a threshold being crossed?
Are we remembered fondly
or are we eventually lost?

I don't know the answers
but I sure wish I did.
We are thirty years from collapse
and riding a very fine line.
I need to learn not to fear
the fast approaching ending
because we're running long on story
but very short on time.