Miles to go

Tonight is when I wish for once, to be the child tucked in. Not the parent who, in a game like chess, considers moves ahead, choices that affect money, health, happiness, could cause heartache, pain, loss.

Finishing one day while preparing for another. Remembering and planning stirred up with whatever it is my hands are doing. Keeping this strange machine running, evaluating its evolution.

I could be the child, for a moment. I have that ability, to 'go' to another season, another time, another place and, for a moment, to believe I'm there.

It serves me well for making up things. But I can imagine that, though the mind is limitless in scope, it's very possible that certain particulars are finite. Like this sort of stretch. It could be like a rubber band, with a certain number of stretches of varying lengths, affected by conditions before it breaks.

Like a number of heartbeats, or the number of times lighter will light. Is this true? I don't know. Could it be measured? Proven? Likely not ever, but it feels so.

This sort of thing then, might be best not used just because I want a warm fuzzy, because I'm a little afraid of the day ahead.

Instead I'll take comfort in good company-- the words of Robert Frost's Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.

I can accept that 'having promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep' is part of the human curriculum.

One day the sleeping child will have his turn. Let him sleep. Tonight it's mine.