The Blacklist Goals List.

I realized today that I have an Blacklist Goals List.

It's that list of secret goals, the one I don't tell anyone about, mostly because it's not really all the admirable. It's not overtly harmful - laying waste to people or theft is not on mine - but it's the little idylls, the daydreams that I dare not speak of least I appear to be less than what I profess to be.

Mine seem to revolve around hurling away large portions of my responsibilities - to just give up and give in and run away to live the life I always dreamed I could, freed from the responsibility of been sane and sound and doing things the the "right" way.

I mocked this Blacklist tonight as I drove home in traffic, puttering along in my 1997 Protege with the semi-functional air conditioning as I watched the more glamorous zip by in their newer cars. I laughed out loud to myself: the image of a 40-something year old cruising up in his '97 white Protege to "hang with the crowd" and be living the life, struck me as funny. The juxtaposition of these two images, the old Protege and "cool" me, sat in in my mind like an image the aging disco junkie from 20 years ago, gold chains jingling as he tried to make the scene amidst the New Wave dance scene. It's that silly.

I say it's silly, but it's poignantly sad at the same time. Being responsible can, frankly, be a bore most of the time. My days have become incredibly scripted, almost to the minute up to the time I get into bed. The bills are paid, Na Clann and The Ravishing Mrs. TB are provided for, the pets are kept in food and shelter and Cheerios - but there is a huge hole in my life, the hole (or maybe whole?) that used to be filled with possibilities, but is now filled with dates and dollars and paperwork to be filed and other things that the "responsible" do.

But now in the back of mind the list continues to hang there, waiting only for me to pick it up, unroll it, and make one of those chaotic decisions which so often promises a zest for life but most often results in greater misery - conveniently dressed up in a new car and a new life.

Which I suppose is the point of the list: to keep it in my mind rather that out in my life.

Instability can occasionally be okay; chaos, not so much.