Hold On...Haven't I Seen That Rock Before?

      Ever get the feeling you’re trapped in one of those horrible carnival corn mazes, walking the same damn narrow corridors through all that dirt and, even when you’re sure you went left this time instead of right, you always wind up somewhere in the middle of the maize (clever!) like six columns over from that glorious exit? Oh, and then you finally ask someone for directions and they start patronizingly rattling off a list of turns and steps that you swear you followed exactly and yet you're still rushing past the same gosh-darn plants like an idiot? Yeah, welcome to the club.

            I mean, luckily life isn’t covered in itchy, bug-infested corn (at least not until ethanol powered cars take over) but still, it’s like we’re playing that maze on the back of the kid’s menu and we’re the two-year old constantly running our crayon into the walls, looking for the same shortcuts every time and always getting stuck at the same dead ends. If you think about it, it all sounds sorta hopeless. Here we are, thinking we’re growing and learning from our mistakes when, in actuality, we’re just fooling ourselves into falling for old traps.

            Seriously, like pathetic test mice, we constantly let the masterful “that guy” put us in that tiny box and than we keep hitting the stupid lever hoping for love but always receiving that nasty shock instead. And, although “that guy” has more tricks up his sleeve than Houdini, the truth is, all he really needs to do is that lame “pick a card, any card” crap and even when you've watched him place your card the wrong direction in the deck, you’re still shocked every time he gets it right and fall at his feet like some starstruck first-grader.

            Sheesh! You would think we’d get sick of running the same circles over and over again, digging ourselves deeper and deeper into the ground until we’ve basically buried ourselves alive (or created ridiculous crop circles that hundreds of years from now scientists will swear is some bizarre alien communication) I mean, I know they say it’s good to recycle and all that, but trust me, taking the same approach and winding up in the same place time and time again isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Sure, you would think that you’d have a better handle on it, be able to navigate the trail a little more easily, keep an eye out for that pesky dip in the road you always seem to fall into. But, despite popular belief, what actually happens is you ultimately find yourself spending the same time obsessing over “that guy” and wasting the same energy over-analyzing “that guy’s” every move until you end up crying the same tears and eating the same tub of cookie dough (and for you annoying people who take everything literally - no it's not actually the same tub - that would be silly)

            The worst part is, it’s not even that you can’t tell you going down the same road, Rather, you see that sign that says “danger ahead” and you think  “hell I’ve done this before, I’m not afraid of a little danger, danger is exciting,” So, you stumble off down that rocky road until you find yourself splattered on the violent shores of unrequited love and then, like some cruel videogame, come back to life at that very fork in the road where you chose danger. But, like a fool, you start down the same damn road, until halfway through you wind up looking around and thinking “hold on...haven’t I seen that rock before?” and wishing that you had the strength to just turn around, all the while knowing that you’re gonna just keep going back anyway, so you might as well finish it off.  

           Of course, in the end, you never get the happy ending you want, because the same equation isn’t gonna magically present different results, but you still can’t stop that annoying optimistic voice in your head that promises this time will be different, this time will be special, this time will be right.

            My advice, take a lesson from good old Robert Frost. Not the part about going out into the woods alone or whatever, that seems kinda dangerous and a little too nature-y for my taste, but the whole meaning of the poem about taking the road less traveled by. I mean, it doesn’t even have to be a road that other people aren’t taking, just maybe one you haven’t tried before. You may surprise yourself! And if not, at least you won't feel like a total dunce when you get to the end of it and realize that you haven't actually gone anywhere at all.

            XOXO

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