The lights go dim....

As the curtain is pulled back the crowd talking becomes but only a slight murmur. This movie does not have the now ever present commercials, nor the 10 previews. Instead of a title and the names of famous actors the scene begins with but a boy. A boy fresh out of college with the world ahead of him who is sitting on the hood of his car laptop in hand pounding on the keys. Wearing his suit he is sitting on a favorite old sweatshirt to avoid getting his pants dirty. In front of him laid out like an empty canvas waiting for the colors from my palette to be chosen is the great unknown. To this green-eyed boy what takes precedence and is more amazing at this moment is the visual spectacle and the vastness of Lake Michigan. One finds it hard to believe to be a lake when you can't see another shore in sight. Watching the sunset it conjures up memories of a California trip where I saw the same sun cool off in the Pacific. The sound of water lapping and the cawing of birds awaken the senses. A narrator begins to speak in an old gruff voice, but one in which you know has stories to be told and words of wisdom to be shared. The narrator's voice is my own some 60 years into the future

"I was 23 at that time. I was young and foolish. Life held many uncertainties and it was wonderful."

It would be a coming of age movie, one destined to be a classic. The movie would continue from this point. This very point where I sit now looking out into vast unknown alone thinking to myself and talking to God. This movie goes on to show the triumphs and failures of this one person's life. My life. It would show moments of falling in love, moments that when you go through you can't believe they are real. Moments you wish you could store in a box and keep on your bedside stand. There would also be moments of loss. Moments that grip our heart with a clenched fist and only being able to truly recover when someone else at some point in time comes into our life when we least expect it. The grasp releases its hold and again we our able to catch our breath and move on. There would be moments when everything in his life would seem perfect and that he would pinch himself for not believing in how very real it was. There would be more moments like the ones he is going through now. Wanting to sleep. Not because of how it helps the body recover from a hard days work, nor because the weight of his eyelids grow heavy as the day progresses. It would be those short hours. Whether it was 4 or a lucky 8 where he gets to escape reality. Everything that isn't going right in my world ends at that time.

I myself am unsure of how this movie will end. Whether it somehow transforms into an action movie with a life ending car chase or one that is merely a comedy tracking my most embarrassing moments. This isn't a plot that can be written for what the future may hold. Yet is rather like one of those childhood choose your own adventure stories with many different possibilities waiting at the end of each page. Which direction will our leading actor take is up to him. That's life and there in lies the meaning. It's worth living. To the fullest. In the meantime, it is time to fold down the laptop and take this all in. The sun has only minutes before it will give way to a starlit sky.