Defining moments

Every single one is a barely altered repetition of the countless others that have preceded it for as long as humans have existed and that will follow it until we vanish.

That knowledge means absolutely nothing in those moments, for each one is ours, uniquely, personally, irrevocably ours.

When we're young, we should expect them, but we rarely do, for we are young.

As the years go by, we stop expecting them, because we are old and believe we have seen them all, but we are as utterly--though differently--wrong as when we were young.

At night, when I bolt awake as if struck by the hand of the past, they crawl after me, dark troops assaulting the last stronghold of my mind.

Yeah, such dramatic language, but they are the very essence of our internal drama, so they've earned that indulgence.

Strange where writing takes you. Or not strange at all, but rather the proper places writers, artists of all sorts, need to visit.

Back to them for me.