Don’t get drunk and complain
to me about career uncertainties,
twenty-one years spent scrambling
for empirical evidence of time
well spent. But can truly well-
spent time be evidenced?

Not all questions have nice answers

Do you remember mud squelching
between tiny toes in motion? I do.
Satisfying squish of frivolity, bare-
foot and finger-painting the blue
hydrangeas even bluer than before

Or were you too distracted by
destination to enjoy that journey?

Do you remember initial freedom
from childhood, curfews, suburbia?
That fluttery feeling in the stomach,
giddy and infinite, from simply
staying out late. I am the cup
that runneth over—are you?

Or are you the tired dregs, drained
by hasty desire to get somewhere?
Are you there yet? Are you anywhere?

I am afraid of future, of unknown, of
what I cannot control and what I can. But
I am more afraid of past, of precious
moments wasted, blurring
in rearview mirrors, trickling down
board game hourglasses

Lost in the crush of go-getters
going           going                going
forward with eyes wide shut,
here we are
are we here?
How can we know
that we are not yet
where we are supposed to be?

Art by Nina Hofkosh-Hulbert.