SILENCE

As I sit here, in this once crazy house, I feel the silence settle. It's not sad anymore, just different. The snore of Snoopy sleeping, like a little engine. Titus running in his dreams. Morrigan waiting by Caitlin's bedroom door, only a few days left girl. She'll be back. A teenager in the house, now that's a breath of fresh air! And I realize how strange life really is. All the things we plan with such diligence, if only a fraction of them happen, it's a miracle. And usually, almost always, even those events are not exactly as we expected. The pinnacles once reached never seem to have an adequate view. So what is the point exactly? I spent all those years telling my mother that I'd get to graduate school eventually, ignoring the worry in her tone, the verdant, deep well of hope balled tightly behind her gaze, all invested in the one thing she thought I needed, to further my education. Those were her plans. To watch me become Atossa Shafaie, PhD. Now that I'm on my way, she's not here. And how arrogant I was to envision all the talks we would have about my professors, my classes, my short stories, and the novels yet to come. I look around me, and I see a world of blue prints, a network of expectations constantly rerouted by life. Get married, not divorced. Have children, not adopt. Don't have children, not a baby. Be a career woman, not a housewife, or a housewife, not a career woman. Get a divorce, not a mistress. Have a family, not a big empty house. Plan for retirement, not cancer. And with every schedule not reached, the weights add, fear triples, and truth becomes more remote. The truth, the one finite goal we all become too terrified to face. Happiness. Unfettered, unconditional, impenetrable happiness. Who, I wonder, has the courage to meet that goal? I'd love to meet that person. Not the one that plays happy, but the one who truly lives it, to the core. THAT is the person that will die well, no matter how, no matter where, no matter when. And that will have been a life well lived.