That’s the way it is.

That’s the way it is. One day you’re three and a half, curled up in your grandfather’s lap, a moment captured on black and white film. The next thing you know you’ve got bills and rent and car payment and the alarm goes off before the sun comes up. Life.

A country’s at war and you long for the presidential statements of history, but all you get is a Texan who stutters when he thinks, repeats himself, and mispronounces common words. It’s not that he’s a bad guy, he’s been impressive the past month, but you want something more. You want speeches that go down in the history books, audio sound bytes that our children will remember. Instead you get E-raq instead of Iraq, and Is-slam instead of Islam.

Life is never as dramatic as we’d like it to be. And then sometimes it’s so much more dramatic. The tragic happens and we can only cover our mouths and gasp. We’ve been trained to look for life through the camera lens, for life through the director’s eyes. Fast, well-timed edits: shot of the gas pedal to the floor, cut to the car cruising down the street, cut to driver’s view, cut to stick shift, dropping to third, cut to pedal shot again, back to driver’s view, back to bird’s eye watch the car swerve, shot of the driver spinning the wheel, all the while the soundtrack thumping in the background. Is that what life’s supposed to be like? Bring your own soundtrack?

If your life was a soundtrack, who would be on it? If your life was a movie, who would star? If your life was a novel, who’d be the author?

Questions and answers, more questions than answers, more answers than questions. And you’re always rehashing. They say drop food not bombs, and we are–but you still can’t win. That’s the way it is.

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