Nothing just happened

Those moments. The ones when you brush ever so lightly against your own mortality. The close calls. When everything slows down like “The Matrix” and the sum total of your life hangs in the balance so clearly that you can pick it up and run your fingers over its craggy surface or roll it around in your hands like some dog’s toy. It’s so small, you think. So … insignificant. But it’s all there: the pitiful little triumphs wadded together among the immense mistakes, or if you’re lucky, vice versa. But if you’re human, chances are you scan the ledger of your life and feel the weight of the bottom line in your gut: You’re operating at a deficit. Suddenly you find yourself bargaining with higher powers — forces you don’t even believe in. Making promises to yourself. Commitments to be a better person. To live well, to love well, to always do the right thing. You awe at the immensity of everything, at the indescribable beauty of the grand illusion, and you thank the universe for giving you whatever tiny role you play in this incomprehensible, maddening, twisted, ridiculous, excruciating and oh-my-god-so-unbelievably-precious continuum called life.

And then the moment passes. Neurotransmitter hits receptor and your heart drums on. And so you move forward, continuing to do all the same stupid shit you did before, just like nothing ever happened.

Because, as far as anyone can tell, nothing ever did.

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