Not Enough

The last raisin. Or popcorn kernel. The last bite of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Not quite enough for another bite. Yet a bit wanted. Just a bit more.

Or time. When we need to finish a task, but the clock has run out. The phone is ringing for an answer to the call and the task. So too, the person at your office door no longer waiting for her answer to the question. Just a moment or two more would have been nice.

How about information? Enough to work with or not quite enough? Lordy, this is common in my life. So much to know, needing to be known, to finish sentences, paragraphs and understanding of problems. Huh! Problems both known and unknown.  Not enough information to deal with an issue. Left dangling, out there, just dangling.

Travel is another dimension of life. We travel to see things, to know things, to experience them, too. We travel to be busy, to act whether purposefully or not. There needs to be no reason for travel; that is what it is, going from one place to another. We imagine a purpose, a grand design of why we move to see things uncommon to our eyes. But is any trip enough? Do we ever stop traveling? Or if we simply cannot travel anymore due to health, mobility or finances, have we traveled enough?  Do we need another trek to somewhere?

Enough. Enough of what? Time, experience, food, shelter, pleasure or what?

Growing older – ageing if you please – this question of enough is more frequent. Memories bring forth things to do because we did them once. Need I do it again? If the urge is great, the answer seems to be yes. But can we, not may we, but can? That’s a complicated question.

Knowing the ‘can’ has limits is one reality of age. I dream of places unseen but read about. I remember the plans to make the trip but undone because of emergent problems. Barriers to the trip remind me of not going to that place. Glacier National Park is one of those for me. And the Road to the Sky. I wanted so much to drive that road. Imagining the views of mountain vistas. Of snowcapped peaks so very, very high. Of tree lines and crags, mountain passes and valleys. Swooping heights and downward spiraling paths. What a place of wonder I believe it to be. And I have missed it. I have not felt it, smelled it, or heard it. Not enough time or mobility to make the trip. Not enough.

And feeling, too. Not enough to forge a knowledge of something special? Not enough emotion, fear, loss or grief? What is this all about? What is this that not enough is trying to tell me?

I guess I’ll never now. Not enough information, don’t you know?

September 18, 2024

 

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