Half Life of a Half Life

Hopes and dreams... so many of them. All pushed to the side while I tried to align my dreams with another's path. It wasn't that I didn't have any opportunity at all to explore a dream or two, but my focus was never on myself, always on others.  Isn't that what we are taught? Put self aside for the sake of others? At what point do we lose ourselves in the process? At what point do we lose the identity that is the very thing that others truly need from us? 

And what is the half life of half a life? For me, it's now. The half life I afforded myself has dissipated and left me with a mere shell of who and what I could have been. How many have walked this road? How many kept walking and how many gave up altogether? Truly, what has to matter most to me is what I am going to be.

A story comes to mind of an ailing man and his experience at the Pool of Bethesda. I am that man, looking for outside influence to help me get to healing waters, and I hear the harmony of voices that tell me, “Rise, take up your bed and walk.”