perspective knocking.

As it turns out, the whole when-a-door-closes-a-window-opens adage bears some significant truth.


The windows, however, might be small, perilously shattered, looking out onto an unidentified landscape, a horizon that seems more sinister than inviting.


Or, according to a recent dream of mine, the window could be placed directly above the door that seems forever locked, just out of reach, in an empty room with no object to assist you in reaching the dangerous height of said window.


Honestly, my dreams can terrify me, but sometimes they are so comically and contemptuously obvious that I can only wake up with a smirk at my brain's own lame attempt at symbolism. (Lame only on occasion, though. For the most part, my dreams certify my insanity.)


Still, if the fact is that the opportunities are there, and we are just standing around beating our heads or our hands against the same shut door, then we could benefit from taking a step backward, and seeing what else is around us. If anyone knows what it feels like to assume you have exhausted all options, the last thing on your list being to come up with another strategy or life assessment, trust me. I could write a book on the subject, and chances are that I someday will.


The recent window I've discovered in my own life is that place, though it may seem to have its hand in everything, is mostly irrelevant. It's helpful in certain scenarios, sure, it puts you nearer or further in terms of miles, but what you have where you are is up to you. I have lived in this particular area of New Jersey for most of my life, the beginning half as a kid growing up, and now, mostly not of my own choosing but of a need for a roof over my head, and two parents who are willing to give me one.


I think we can both oversimplify the idea of home as much as we can stress it to a point of becoming near meaningless, piling so much responsibility on it that it crumbles and cracks under the weight of our expectations.


As an aspiring writer you might think, well New Jersey can't be all that bad, right? It's New York City adjacent, it poses opportunities in Pennsylvania, there are even some major magazines based in this state (who knew?), etc. All true things. And even though I've been lately mulling over the idea of a giant move (I mean cross-country huge), and getting really excited about, well, who knows what exactly (but I mean, majorly and seriously excited to see new areas and get lost and re-find my favorite coffee shops and parks and start a new job and LIVE), there is still something to be said for the ground I meet with every day, with the way things are right now.


That being said, it seems that every time you breathe deep and do your best not to worry, to accept a little bit, to try without making yourself crazy, new ideas begin to grow. New discoveries are made and your eyes are opened to the same things in a way you never thought you'd see them, and suddenly, just as you thought everything was destined to stay the same for just a while longer, things are moving on again.


I would be more than prepared to move out into the world, were I given the real and right opportunity to do so. If I was told to be ready any minute now, packed up and be on the road tomorrow (or TONIGHT), I could do it, no questions asked. The fact that the world is big and we're given time to explore it is no coincidence. And neither is this unmistakable feeling of not yet being grounded, of thinking day and night on the ways to move about, to see things bathed in newness, to taking, you know, the less-traveled path. 


Still, in the meantime, there is nothing that stops us from imaginative ways of making our current lives equally exhilarating, wherever we may find ourselves. For all the things we might believe are only mundane, for all the things we assume have no chance to surprise us, we might find ourselves someday soon crawling through that wide-open window to a place we never really knew.