Looking back is not the same as looking forward you can’t see what it is you’re heading toward all that’s visible is what’s left behind the dreams distilled and the dreams discarded what made you leap or left you empty hearted in the moment and in the fullness of time Now you see what it is that you would have changed if only you’d known where you’d be and to be here is very strange waking up alone in the middle ages All along you paid close attention to the answers when a voice asked the question how’d you get here, where do you belong 17 makes us brave and so full of nerve 35 makes us pause but we’re undeterred never say die and so we push on And some come to a place of reckoning try to fix what they find I arrived with the questions still beckoning in the back of my mind to the middle ages Now you bitch about your job what’s wrong with folks today the price of gas and milk and the guy who begs for change he’s camped out at the light you hide behind your shades and will the green to flash to speed your getaway you’re racing to keep up or just to be on time that’s what you tell yourself when the emptiness inside threatens to break out clouding up your eyes you just have to pull over We used to dread lives rendered ordinary we always said we’d own a grander story but the only kind worth telling somehow is the one about a jolt that makes you listen that jagged lightning bolt of recognition that love and kindness are all that matter now And way back in the back of your mind you heard something getting through like some beautiful passage without words welcoming you to the middle ages