Funny how our minds, that seem so easily moved from one moment to the next, can find themselves so easily trapped in a place we don't want them to be, a place from so far back in the past that it shouldn't even exist anymore.

Maybe not funny, maybe just cruel.

Maybe Robert Heinlein's Lazarus Long had it right; every now and then, go through a complete reset, mind wipe and all, so you can't remember all that old crap that makes it suddenly hard to function.

I just want everybody to be happy.

My Jayson wrote me after his birthday. A brief note about his upcoming graduation from VA Tech, and his plans for the summer. I was inspired by his energy and remembered days from my past when I looked forward to opportunities, which I would choose to take - or not.

One of Jayson's summer options involved his father, David. The man who was so much a part of my world that I thought I didn't exist away from him. The Merlin to my Mad Madam Mim. Somewhere deep in my core, that man is still my Merlin and I am still Mim, though I'm sure now that we'd destroy each other if we met again. Actually, I still feel the Mim now even without him, but I do remember how it was. Who he was, then. He is not that man now; he is someone else. Perhaps I am too; or perhaps I am the same, merely more than before. Could be either, I guess.

Jayson noted that his father has been spending his time making other people rich in their restaurants, and not following his own lifelong dream of owning and operating a restaurant of his own. I remember countless evenings spent discussing how he would make it work. He knows every possible angle of the business and has quite a bit of experience. I wondered to myself (and then to Jayson in my reply to him) why his father hasn't taken that leap. I honestly believed that by this time he would be in his glory, running the show.

I remember when he took a second job working as a cook at a local seafood place; he would come home late at night, covered with flour in spite of washing up before leaving work, and he'd be grinning from ear to ear. He was always so happy working in a kitchen.

Now I wonder what life has put in front of him to make him choose not to follow that dream. I think it must be fear. He must be afraid of failing. I can't imagine that man that I knew being afraid, but now I see that it was probably there all along; right alongside all those other things I didn't see - the human within the man I knew.

David, if ever you find yourself scanning these pages, and you come across this; know that I believe that the man I knew is still inside there somewhere, fighting to get back out. Let him out, let him breathe. He will save you. But you have to let go of your fear, and you have to trust him.

Peacocks in My Front Yard