You look out and you know that what you see isn’t really what is there. but you have glasses on (perhaps not so rose-colored) and baggage in the way, and everything is obscured by filters you just can’t quite see through. One or two, you hear the eye doctor in your head, and you want to say none, none is better. But none isn’t a choice.

And then sometimes, you squint and your strain your eyes because you know that what you see is there isn’t what is there and you blink and you rub your eyes with your fists and it’s like one of those optical illusion pictures where you see the old woman when who you want to see is the beautiful girl.

And then, then. One day when you aren’t even meaning to look, not really, you open your eyes and everything has tilted. And it’s all still there and it’s all still the same, but everything is different.

I described it once this way. That I was at a brick wall, immovable. And I saw no way around the wall even though I knew the only way forward was past the wall. And it was impossible. Any way around, over, under, or through the wall was simply an impossibility. And then one day I was around and the wall was behind me.

Was the wall ever even there? Maybe it was like the old woman and the path ahead was the beautiful girl.

I know you can’t make yourself see what you don’t see. The best you can do is keep going and slowly, gradually, like sand crumbling from the rising tide, you open your eyes and things tilt. According to wikipedia, the tilt-a-whirl operates on the unpredictable nature of chaotic motion.

I’ve done a lot of rubbing my eyes and blinking the last few weeks. Talking and talking and talking. To everyone who would listen. And I would hear them tell me what the world looked like and I didn’t see it. I don’t know if what I see now when I open my eyes is what they see, but I know that it’s different than it was before.

I’m taking these private lessons, um, dance classes, aerobics. For working out. OK, fine, it’s pole dancing. And it is, in fact, I really great workout. My instructor throws in a lot of yoga along with the pole work. Helps with the flexibility. She’s always asking me if I feel the joy. I tell her she has an odd definition of joy as she’s contorting my hips into positions my hips didn’t know were possible.

I don’t know the meaning of life or what we’re all really supposed to be doing or if it’s better to enjoy the moments or plan for the future and since I don’t know any of those things, I do know I won’t overlook joy. The moments are like shiny beads of glass and I string them together on delicate strands. And I think, maybe it is as simple as this.

I want to change the world. Learn everything about the world. Be loved by someone who thinks I’m awesome. But at what point do I lower my expectations? Decide I’m approaching this life thing all wrong and that I’m not on a path to where I think I want to go; I’m just on a path that ends at a really steep cliff. And maybe some scary dragons.

This impact the world, learn it all drive is rooted in being terrified of death, of the idea that we all die someday. So maybe I just need to change my strategy. Instead of focusing all my energy on maximizing the time I have here, I could just join a cult. I could find peacefulness in the idea that death is just a stepping stone to the next level in my existence. That seems a lot easier than my method. Particularly since my method doesn’t seem to be working. And while the cult method might not be strictly speaking accurate, perception is reality in these things, right?

Could I give up my drive and curiosity and skepticism and just be happy not being accomplished and successful and growing and all of those things that I want but just seem to drown me? Well, no. Probably not. But I’m tempted to try.

Things that have made me cry this week:

• That part of that sappy Romeo and Juliet Taylor Swift Song that goes “you’ll never have to be alone, I love you and that’s all I really know”.
• A story on NPR about a hedgehog with cancer (who was OK in the end).
• The part of the episode of The Office where Pam and Jim get married when he cuts off his tie to match her ripped veil.

I think as long as I can avoid TV and radio, I just might make it through OK.

You know how people make those links of 100 things to do or 100 places to see before they die? I don’t have anything like that. My list is mostly, “don’t die”. I wonder, would it be wrong to take the lists of other people and cross off what of their things I’ve done? I know. I don’t even want to do everything they list. And the whole point of the lists is to live my life the way I want, to the fullest, every minute, cherish sunsets, etc. I know. But really I only have two things on my list and I want to just spend my life doing those two things. Which isn’t practical, nor is it even attainable. So other people’s lists it is!

I’ll start with Mighty Girl. I hope she doesn’t mind. Of her 100 things, I’ve done 13. I could have done a few more more, but when presented with the opportunity to ride a camel in the desert, I chose the four-wheel drive. And I didn’t really need a bank account when I was last in Switzerland, although I get her point about putting it on the list. This is why choosing other people’s lists with things you don’t want to do is problematic. Her list as partially completed by me looks like this:

Scuba dive | Cross the Canadian border | Have a croissant at a French cafe | Try escargot | Whiskey at a pub in Ireland | Make butterscotch from scratch | Grow vegetables | Live in a house with a window seat | Ring a church bell | Rewire a lamp | Own land | | Zip line through a canopy | Buy a stock on my own |

I was on the fence about “see Cuba”. I have in fact seen it, but have not actually set foot on it. The seeing was more at a distance, as in, “oh look! That big land thing is Cuba!”

How about this list I found on a Tripod site? 25!

Swim with a dolphin | Throw a huge party and invite every one of your friends | Have your portrait painted | Learn to speak a foreign language and make sure you use it | Learn to rollerblade | Plant a tree | Own a room with a view | Visit the Senate and the House of Representatives | Ring a church bell | Be the boss | Stay out all night dancing (does it have to be dancing?) and go to work the next day without having gone home | Ask for a raise | Learn to play a musical instrument with some degree of skill | See a lunar eclipse | Sleep under the stars | Spend a whole day reading a great novel | Find a job you love | Grow a garden | Drive a convertible with the top down and music blaring | Learn to use a microphone and give a speech in public| Attend one really huge rock concert | Create your own web site | Visit the Holy Land | Ski a double-black diamond run | Fall deeply in love — helplessly and unconditionally |

The portrait thing is only if having a drawing done by one of those artists at Disneyland in the New Orleans part counts. (True story: I have been carting this portrait of me (circa: 11th grade) forever. What do you do with such a thing? It’s not like you can hang it on your wall. And throwing yourself away just feels a little creepy. But I finally did just that a couple of months ago. Maybe you can leave yourself behind after all!)

That whole “go skinny-dipping at midnight in the South of France” seems a little specific. Maybe I’ll try that one next. In conjunction with “Buy a round-the-world air ticket and a rucksack, and run away.”

I have too many things in my head. I used to be able to hold it all there and have infinite room for anything. So I don’t have any practice at not letting it all in. Writing helps. Because it’s not just work and what I have to do next and how I should approach this and why is my bank account so low and where is my next flight. But it’s also wanting to know more about that thing I saw and how I feel about what happened that one time, the people I need to take care of, and my happiness, my anger, my frustration, my hope, why I love.

You think to yourself, this is so small it takes up no room at all. But everything has weight. Everything takes up space. And that’s what I don’t remember.

So I try to focus and hold the rest back, and it’s like trying to hold back a downpour, a tsunami, with a paper program from a student play.

Some things are important. Some things only seem important. And sometimes urgency is dictated by timeliness rather than priority. I want to put everything in a jar, like marbles where you have to guess how many are there to win a prize, and I want to shake them out one by one in the right order. I want to line everything up like dominoes: over the tables and on books and through corridors and around corners until every last thing is laid out and I can see it all clearly at once, even if I have to climb to the top of a mountain to have it all in view.

But it’s all so small that some of it slips away. The wind catches it - a silk scarf, a tiny torn-off corner of a paper napkin. How can I know if something’s gone missing?

And I feel so heavy because I’m carrying it all around, all the time, so I don’t lose it, and there’s no where else to keep it safe.