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the blizzard of the world has crossed the threshold
I bought a suitcase today that comes with a 15 year warranty.
Because I am a mental magician, I figured out on my way home from the store that in 15 years it will be the year 2019 and I, should I live so long, will be a few short weeks from turning 40. I have to tell you, I kind of spazzed for a second. I mean, 2019! Can you imagine? For some reason this number just astounds me. I had never stopped to consider the possibility that I might be alive in the year 2019. Try saying it out loud. Doesn't it sound like some crazy futuristic year of ...the FUTURE?! It is so bewildering to contemplate. Surely by the year 2019 there will be flying cars and robots that do all the housework and people living on the moon and world peace. And 40. Man, I can't even wrap my head around the concept of myself at 40. I wonder, in a vague way, what I will be like, since I cannot even begin to imagine. It's like that future is so big and far-away and surreal that it cannot come into focus and is just this enormous, swirling black mass somewhere in front of me that I know is there but can't really see.
While I was pondering this, it occurred to me that my amazement now at the idea that I will ever be 40, and live in the year 2019, is very similar to the awe I felt, at the age of 10, trying to imagine what my life would be like in the year 2005, when I would turn 25. 2005! I would be alive in the year 2005! Such a crazy space age time, when all things would be possible. And 25! So old! How would that feel? As I recall, I envisioned that by the time I was 25, I would be a veterinarian, and live in a giant glass beach house filled to the brim with all species of exotic and domestic animals, with a field outside for my flock of sheep and herd of goats. And my horses and giraffes. My house would be like the Biodome, essentially, except better.
As it turns out, I live in a small apartment with only 3 small windows and NO PETS. And no beaches nearby. AND, not only am I not a veterinarian, I have no desire to be! My life clearly went off the rails somewhere in the last 15 years. I hope that the next go-round I will end up less of a disappointment to my former/current self.
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"The mind of the thoroughly well informed [person] is a dreadful thing. It is like a bric-a-brac shop, all monsters and dust, and everything priced above its proper value."
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