i exist

I am fast approaching my thirty-fifth birthday.

The Friday morning preceding seemed like an apropos time to sit, waiting in the DMV for license renewal with a huge stack of seeming proof of my identity and whereabouts. It's intriguing to me that an expired identification card could call into question the aforementioned identity.

Does identity really have a shelf life? Does it truly require outside validation to prove who any of us really are?

Much of life extends from the challenge well-known by a fourth grader whose arm is stretched high toward oblivion, hand waving about, with answer fully pressed on tongue, but with acknowledgement consistently overlooked. We'd all like to be seen for who we are, what we know, where our capabilities and talents lie, but more often than not we instead become merely the projection of others - others' wants and others' insecurities packaged into full time underestimation of us.

Some might even work equivalently to how they're paid, giving even themselves the impression that all they're worth is the circumference of that leather bound ass print. Some people really do nurture this believe in themselves. They create walls of self-doubt and loathing around themselves like a Freudian twist on the Cask of the Amontillado. Some people waste away in the status quo.

I say thankless routine builds long term regret. So frequently we pop a squat on what could be by fearing what might be. One thing we all forget is how much of our existence transpires in our head. We dream big, we dream wild and we contemplate so much, disappointed when John Quiñones rounds the corner wondering why we hesitated to act or to do more than simply feel. So often our true actions disagree with our true potential. It's been noted that some prefer failure, because success would be too much work.

Birth we can certify and be assured about. It's living that comes under question.

What are the parameters of living to the hilt? I spent the best part of five hours, sitting in the DMV lobby watching people work, seeing others interact, grow weary, cranky and overheard one man talking about having to register himself as a career criminal. Judgment aside, how's that for taking life by the balls? Everyone's life is a topographical map. For some it's laid out full of flat lands and arid deserts, whereas others are lush and full of stories that inspire envy.

What would yours look like?

(98)