Too Free

Today was a breakdown. Not about how bad life is, but rather about how good I have it. It was a realization that as I am planning ahead for my future I am free. Too free. Some people talk about their future plans and that have to take into account their strings, and sometimes their steel cables that are holding them in one place. I am not without strings. However, my strings are more like elastic bands, giving me a wide range of motion and mobility. But sometimes I envy the steel cables.
I often feel like me and my life are just up in the air, floating in zero gravity. And there I am up there just waiting for at least one part of my life to be affected by gravity and collide again with solid ground. Maybe then I would have some kind of direction.

It is a big wide world out there. But not so big that its beyond my reach, nor so wide that I would be unwilling to consider any corner of it.

When we are young people asked of us, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" I always felt fairly smug because I always had an answer, and my answer didn't change. I think at this point in life most of my peers who were initially uncertain have begun to find their place. I think by now we're beginning to feel increasingly confident in our ability to answer that question. And just as we start to feel like we've got our lives together they change the question on us. To know what we want to be is no longer good enough. Now they ask, "Where do you want to be?" It is this question that plagues me, because this time I don't have an answer. When I think about it too much I feel like I'm suffocating with the enormous number of possible answers. I'm suffocating in my freedom.

Chocolate Oranges

Imagine....You got the news today. The news that Chocolate and Orange and hereafter inseparable.

People are thrilled, (the people that love chocolate oranges that is). But I must admit my hesitance to join the festivities on this momentous occasion. I can't help but wonder if two good things can be ruined in combination.

I mean, take chocolate. Chocolate is great. Like really great. Sure, every so often you get some cheaper waxy chocolate that disappoints you, but overall it's track record is pretty good. Even after a bad experience it finds a way to sneak back into your heart, regain your trust and get you back on it's team.

The orange is a different story. Oranges have a very strong flavour. It isn't really a sweetness, it more a tartness, or maybe the sweetness is just overpowered by the acidity. Granted, this might be a personal opinion, and oranges aren't something I choose to eat. Most of my orange interactions are with the juice, but only in my smoothie. I just can't handle the orange juice on its own. Maybe I got turned off by pulp. All it took was one mouthful of pulp and I was ready to swear off anything to do with oranges for life. But I didn't do that. I can recognize that there is some goodness in oranges. So now I just deal with it in small doses.

Now let me clarify why this chocolate orange news is upsetting. From now on I won't be able to just hide the orange in my smoothie. I won't be able to just avoid chocolate oranges in the cupboard in lieu of finding just pure chocolate elsewhere. No, from now on every time I take a bite of chocolate what will I taste? Orange. What will be the distracting element in an otherwise favourite taste? Orange.

And so, I either must acquire a taste for chocolate oranges. Or, sadly, I imagine that I will eventually just come to give up chocolate.

This is disturbing news indeed.