Confused

I woke up this morning and Confusion was waiting for me at the coffee maker.

"Good morning" he cheerfully greeted me as I stumbled up from doing my sit-ups.

"Unnh" was my pre-morning response as I carefully moved him to one side to get the morning coffee started.

He patiently waited for me as I got the coffee going, got my breakfast out, and then slumped back onto the couch for my Monday morning reading. Apparently, he wasn't going away.

I tried to read for a couple of minutes but his insane smile (and the fact he insisted on reading over my shoulder) finally drove to drop what I was doing.

"Fine" I said. "What is it?"

"Oh nothing, nothing" he responded, smiling all the while. "I just realized after the week you had and the week you're going to have, it was probably time for me to drop by.

I took a sip of the hot coffee in the cold and just looked at him sitting there, smiling. "You've been eavesdropping again."

"I? Eavesdropping?" he said in mock exaggeration, hands placed upon chest. "I just listen. We all do. It's not like we don't share the same mind, you know."

I sighed again. My coffee was less warm. "Alright, fine. I'm confused. I don't know what to do. Every time I look at my goals or objectives or even my wishes, all I find is nothing and ash. Every time I try to plan it gets turned on it's head. Every thing I think I want to do gets questioned. Time is passing but I'm being pulled along by the flood instead of riding it. Happy?" I ended with a "harumph" and got another sip of coffee. Great, it was getting colder as well.

The grin disappeared off Confusion's face as if my words had the power to wipe it off. He just sat there looking at me for a minute or so, the two of us staring at each other in the cold, dark house with the dwindling warmth of the coffee in my hands.

"What do you want?" he finally asked.

I looked at him in disbelief. "What do I want?" I said in the low frustrated voice of a man trying not to wake anyone else up in the morning. "What do I want? That's the problem - I don't know what I want. I want everything. I want things I can get to. I want things that I have no idea how I can get to them - only that I want them. I want to go here, I want to go there - but if I go there, does it get me where I want?"

I stared into my coffee cup for what seemed like longer than the few seconds that it was. "I want someone to tell me what I want, because I really have no idea. Every time I make a choice, it seems wrong. Every time I choose a goal, it seems unachievable. Every time I try to choose what I think will make me happy it never does. I feel mired in my own inability and failures." I continued to stare at the coffee cup, which only had residual warmth at this point.

Confusion gave a long sigh. He waited until my eyes met his. He smiled that understanding smile he occasionally seems capable of, then carefully took the cup out of my hands. He walked over to the coffee machine, which I could just see at the edge of the darkened kitchen. I heard the sounds of glass clicking and liquid pouring. He came back over with steam rolling over the edge of the now-filled cup and held it out to me. I grabbed the heavy, steaming mug and looked back at him.

He didn't sit down this time, just stood there smiling at me. "Sometimes if our cups are empty, it's okay to ask others to help us fill them. In the end, you make the choices you live with, but there is no reason you have to make them on your own. Ask yourself this: If, in the absence of any physical reality or reasons something could be done, you wanted something, what would it be? Figure that out, and your path will become clear. Not easy, but clear."

And with that he faded back into the pre-morning hum of the kitchen darkness, leaving me alone with a coffee mug full of ponderings.