When I woke up this morning, I had a story in mind. It was about reaching the summit of a ridge at dawn, and looking down into a beautiful fertile valley. And knowing that whatever route I took across it, whatever marvels I might find there, I would have to reach the opposing ridge by sunset.

The whole thing was going to be a metaphor for life, and a fairly positive one, I thought. But what stopped me from writing it wasn't that it wasn't truly what I believed. Or that it sounded even a tiny bit sappy to me; y'all know that's never stopped me before.

It's that I found, for all my conviction, that that positive image-building part of me can't be the only one.

There's a part of me that doesn't want to participate in my life, at least as it is now. There's a part that hates having to be the grownup, that wants the fancy sports car and not the bill, that wishes he could sleep and let everyone else do the living.

And he's a lot harder to talk about: he's embarrassing, and everything I've ever done "right" hurts him. And part of me knows that it would be reckless self-indulgence to do whatever he wants; he's a teenager with not only the false bravado typical of his age but the absolute conviction that he's never going to die.

And he's wrong.