One egg at a time

Bruce Wayne: What was I looking for?
Trainer: Only you can know that.

True dat, man, true dat. Though I wish someone could just tell me simply and make the search a little easier.

I'm still a little fuzzy on the details of what I've been looking for, but from what I can muster into words, as a result of my given circumstances, I can say that I've been looking for a positive challenge to pass the time. My arm has been raised up to the gods, my fingers stretched out, my limbs yearning in a specific direction like a flower tilting towards the light, all in hopes to grasp something just beyond me. The effort it takes is an essential point of my personal development, as I know it is the journey, not the destination. Still, I wish I had something to hold onto other than the excess of my past and faded realities. I desire the golden light, a thing who can reflect warmth and love and inspiration...

Sometimes I feel I've stretched so hard to meet the destination that I've come almost full circle and captured what's pooled at my feet, a little below what I am capable of. My head is down. I'm taking what I can get because getting something feels so good, at least it's something to hold onto.

But it's like sitting like a lame duck and settling for easy words. It's like sticking in the pond even when it starts to freeze over. It's not realizing I have wings and can soar above all that, and I can overcome.

Reaching out is a productive use of time for me even if it means at the end of the day my hand is wide open and unfulfilled. When I stand and reach and yearn, even bellow, I am Cool Hand Luke with a cool hand full of nothing, taking bets on how many eggs I can eat. 50 sounds like a nice round number. And even though it seems completely impossible and reasonably stupid, it's a fun way to get through the moments of a lonely and undirected life. Stretching farther than I can reach teaches me my freedom and limitlessness, which is why I live at all.

The right now reality, unfortunately, is that I cannot eat 50 eggs. All those eggs in one basket... it's dangerously full, which I know, yet I try to consume them all anyway, and I fall sickeningly short. And my resilience flops so hard when the basket breaks, I can't pick up and build a healthy appetite. My stomach is calloused now. The eggs are wasted, my shell is cracked. I guess that's just what happens when you reach so hard and recklessly with all your eggs in one damned basket.

I thought I learned this lesson before... to spread the eggs out a little thinner. But stretching for something that full of desire just feels so good! It always seems like a mighty fine way to pass the time before the crash. Today I know: one egg at a time. I'll reach for one egg up on the highest shelf that looks just out of reach... and when I get it, I'll take my time to digest it, and then I'll reach some more. One egg, one moment at a time. No rush. No impossible expectation. Just stretching with a cooler hand full of just enough for now. That's what I'm looking for, and some other day beyond now, that "just enough" can turn into something golden.