Hey Anakin

I remember sitting on my parents' bed around the age of eight...holding the yellow plastic box from our medicine cabinet; it was filled with ointments and utensils. There was a blade; it was a covered scalpel-type tool and I knew I wasn't supposed to put it to my skin...I knew what it was for and what it would do. Still, I was compelled to feel it, see what would happen if sharpness met my flesh. I removed the cap and sliced my finger. I wasn't trying to hurt myself...I just couldn't stop myself from seeing if what I knew could hurt...would.

I had a recurring dream around the same age. There was a monster around my parents' house...I knew it...I knew it was scary too. I would call for it, tempt it with apple juice, "monster...oh, monster....", I remember calling from the garage door. Inevitably the monster would appear and I was terrified. It didn't stop me from luring it out somehow it in the next dream...just to see if the thing I feared would come when I called it.

Was cutting my finger inevitable without putting the blade to my skin?
Was the monster destined to show up at my door without temptation?
It could have gone either way.

I find myself asking these questions twenty years later because my life and dreams seem to be wrapped up in the same patterns. I wrote in a journal once as a young adult that I feel the need to stretch everthing to its breaking point...so I can understand the breadth and depth of any matter.

Someone very dear to me challenged my concept of reality last night. "If you believe x, then x is what is going to happen." That's a very bold statement. Is belief an action...a choice? I suppose it is...and I don't want to go on forever believing in actions that I know will hurt me. If fate should have it that I reach into a box of medical utensils and cut my finger, so be it. If a monster shows up unnanounced at my door, I will meet it. If not...

I think I need to give it a rest and take a chance on the things in life that I don't know.