The Learning Curve

As children, we suffer under the ridiculous belief that adults have this thing we call "life" figured out. To imagine that anyone might grasp the entire inner workings of human existence is absolutely laughable. Years after I had thrown aside the notion of Santa Claus and his sweatshop of elves I still clung to the belief that adults were infallible and miraculous. Such notions were violently ripped from me when I was a teenager, when I began to see clearly that everyone around me was stumbling - some more gracefully than others but still, falling through life. There is no formula that can calculate your precise trajectory because you are not the product of your choices alone. I think of Ian Malcolm in the film version of Jurassic Park describing chaos theory and it hits home; the smallest fluctuation can change the course of your life. So, it never surprises me when I learn something new about myself or take an interesting turn on my journey through life.

I've had a lot of interesting turns over the last year, but being twenty-eight and finding out my health is tanking was probably the greatest shock. I never expected to be here after spending months in the gym working through some difficult emotions. I'm supposed to be in shape, feeling fantastic, enjoying what is left of my twenties. Instead, the last few weeks have been a waiting game where the goal is to guess how long the neurologist will procrastinate before calling me back. My father always needled me about having a lack of patience as a child - I haven't really mastered that skill yet. Nobody figures life out.