It’s almost midnight, and my body is worn out. I’m not sure why. My energy level has been up and down lately. I’ve been sitting here in the living room for the last three hours, unable to drag myself away from a documentary my mom’s watching about Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky. It’s weird, I remember when all that happened, but now all the major players are twenty years older. Which means I’m twenty years older too. Weird how time flies by like that. Recently I told my friend Matt that I started dancing when I was 19; now I’m 38. Matt said, “That means you’ve been dancing for half your life.” I said, “Thanks for pointing that out–I think.”

Half. My. Life.

This afternoon I went to a friend’s house to help them set up a new television that they bought this morning. It was a Black Friday deal. Anyway, I ended up spending the day there, working on their television, eating dinner with them, helping them with a few Christmas decorations. We laughed a lot. It was kind of the perfect thing. Unplanned, but perfect.

Now I’m really ready to go to bed. I wish I had something profound to say, but I don’t. Last night I dreamed that I was looking through the mementoes of a dead blues singer and–earlier in the dream–driving with a friend toward Division Street, a street in Fort Smith that crosses Midland Avenue. I read recently that if you keep a dream journal, you can name or label your dreams in order to help you get an idea of what they’re about. I called this one “Getting My Past in Order,” since it “felt” like what I’ve been doing lately going through old photos, at least the looking at mementoes part. As for the dead blues singer, I took that to mean that I’m working to put the sad events of my life behind me.

I’ve been chewing on the Division Street part on and off all day. On the way home from my friend’s tonight, I actually drove down Midland Avenue and Division Street to see if that would reveal anything profound. It didn’t, but my sense is that Midland has to do with “the middle,” as in balance or a mid-way point. It’s how I feel right now–in stasis–stuck in Mid Land. Like it’s too late for me to go back, but I’m not sure how to move forward. As for Division, I think it’s that “getting my past in order” thing. That is, in any hero’s journey, there must be a line drawn in the sand. A point of no return. The past, with all it’s sadness and limitations, must be left behind you. Because you can’t take it with you wherever you’re going. It’s just too heavy.

And have you seen what the airlines charge for baggage these days?!