Skating The Edge

Sometimes I think I'm focused on the wrong things. I can think and write and talk all I want about making things better, but I'm not doing much.

A couple years ago (ok, I'll be honest- like 5) I had almost no debt. I had one smallish student loan, and that was it. I didn't work more than I had to, took time off when I wanted, could quit and move whenever I liked.

I was the Grand Canyon tourist, safe behind the fence. Then I got a crazy idea. I went away for school, something I could only pay for with student loans and credit cards.

Within 8 months of deciding to go overseas--months before I even left the US--that fence was gone. I became the curious kid on the wrong side of the rope, the cartoon character who just had to get a better angle. I was a drunk giraffe ice skating figure 8's 2 feet from the edge of the world.

I didn't like it very much. I'm standing at the edge now and my balance isn't very good.

Right now, this minute, I'm at the very edge. I'm blindfolded, and my toes are hanging off- I know because I can feel the wind whipping along under them. I have two weeks, maybe, to figure out where I am. Two weeks to crawl back a little, or when I take the blindfold off I'll be Wile E Coyote standing in the middle of a canyon with nowhere to go but down.

I want to be responsible. I *need* to be responsible, pay these bills, pay off the debts I incurred. But I'd be lying if I didn't say that some small part of me wonders- would the world really end if, instead of trying to drag myself back from the edge, I just took a huge step forward and let myself fall?

image by mondi