Where is this all going?

I wonder about a time long ago when mid-20s was also mid-life. I wonder what kind of wisdom someone living in that world could impart on me if their view was that their life was half over. Could they tell me where this is all going?

The answers don’t seem so simple anymore. Grow up, learn something, get married, have a kid, help your kids have kids, vacation, and then you’re done. So many people who have lived so many more years have remarked how young I am; it’s a statement that is pregnant with meaning in a different language. I only hear the sounds of a certain expectation that becoming un-young would somehow reveal.

Well, I’m lost. Maybe more lost than I have ever been, and I have had my fair share of aimless wanderings. For many years I felt I merely existed in the world as a corporal mass of water and biology. Joy was a stranger; Misery my sole companion. Now having become acquainted with Joy and announcing my misgivings over Misery, I wonder what is the point?

What is the point of chasing a happiness around that behooves me, tricks me, mocks me? Like a child it tells me enchanting stories and invites me to play, sings a sweet song and whispers in my ear.

Then it disappears.