Light #2

“The light at the end of the tunnel was an indistinct disappointment.” What a line—the substance of how many biographies, autobiographies, and memoirs. Lifetime: a trip down a tunnel trying to reach the light one touchstone experience at a time. 

Can hardly wait to start school, and be one of the big kids.

Can hardly wait to be in Junior High, to be a teenager.

Can hardly wait to be in high school. Be through with high school.

To get my driver’s license.

To get my first kiss, feel, sex. Sex with a partner it really matters with. Sex with an appropriate partner. A partner worth building a life with.

To get my degree and get a job. To get a job somehow in line with my degree.

To get my first promotion. 

To be the boss.

To have my own business and be my own boss.

To be a Dad/Mom.

To see the kids in school and have some time back to myself.

To slow down a bit and find time to smell the flowers.

To retire and travel.

To . . . 

 

To see the full light at the end of the Tunnel of Sequential Dissatisfactions that we call Life: the light that in some narratives of near-death experiences takes us out of this dimly lit sequence of experiences that never seem to measure up to anticipation, and in some way or other never could. The full light that takes us into another tunnel that is the wherever and whatever is next, nourished by the hope it will be a distinct improvement.