Listen, I know something needs to change. Well, okay, I suppose everything could stand to be different. You know what I mean. You hang on to the hope that circumstance changes, that this person will suddenly be different and that opportunity will suddenly present itself, and these bad habits will miraculously evaporate one morning. Yet, as the saying goes, insanity is doing the same thing hoping for different results. Circumstances are not going to change.

So I will. I’ve done it before, but in stages, slight tacking into the wind, barely noticeable, especially from onboard. But this time in honor of all those ghosts who swing by my bedroom most mornings at one am to warn me I can still save my own soul and that I’m still working on that damn chain even now two years after they departed, I’m changing directions. I have to. I’m not present anymore.

I am reminded of an old song by Carol Bayer Sager, sung by Neil Diamond, which in part says, “Pity the poor one, the shy and unsure one, who wanted it perfect but waited too long.” I love that.

So today, a metaphor. On video nonetheless.

My friends: Moving On:

(the following essay was originally published in A Third Place: Notes in Nature, 2019, Madville Publishing)