just outside of everywhere

I was born the product of a rationalist and a dreamer: one with lofty aspirations that we never quite knew how to reach, or even see-- the other with hands that ceaselessly toiled in the earth. They were polar opposites, and we knew that very early on. Although it lasted for over two decades, like so many fruitful relationships, it was simply not meant to be forever. Maybe their union was just a trick of nature-- trying to create cosmic balance by bringing together two disparate beings-- generating new, recombinant life that, at the very least, had a shot at the best of both worlds.

My brother and I lived most of our lives in an awkward realm between today and tomorrow, never really knowing which to hold more stock in. We didn't belong to the sky or the earth. We didn't grow roots, and we were too affected by the gravity of pragmatism to ever quite reach the stars. We hovered somewhere in between-- just over the land, where we couldn't quite touch anything, and nothing could touch us.

We occupied that lonely space together, just outside of everywhere.

As adults, we are growing to have the distance that perspective requires. Opportunities have begun to surround me this year-- some of them rational and well-established, with the security of benefits, pension plans, and the comfort of reasonably knowing what to expect of tomorrow.

Another road glistens before me without any promises or expectations at all: an awe-inspiring though formidable cliff which beckons me to trust in what I had come to believe were vestigial wings.

But they are not. They beg to be tested.

I suppose, ultimately, we were lucky. We may not be able to simultaneously occupy both worlds, as we had once so desperately tried to-- but we have the unique option to move freely between them-- something akin to dual citizenship of the earth and stars.