Every man dies. Not every man really lives.

I want to live.

This isn't a novel concept, it's a universal one.  I sure think it is at least; saying anything is universal is about as ridiculous as claiming to know anything about the universe at all.  Perhaps an understatement, but all we really know is that "it's there."  The same can be said for life.  It's there, and then it's not, and then it goes on.  This is about life, or perhaps about the lack of one lately.

Over the last 2.5 years I've wrote the following things on life, my life, across various blogs or other emails I've kept private.  Looking back at one of them now, it reaffirms something that I've already known for quite some time.

July 8, 2012:
I've also realized that I'm no longer content with my job of the last 2+ years. Although I can't point to any one specific reason why, there are a number of things that come to mind to portray the feelings I have about work.

• The attitude among employees is more about 'survive' than 'thrive'
• The work seems meaningless, uninteresting, and not worthy of my full efforts
• I feel as though I've reached my full growth potential and have no interest in doing the same task for another X years

At the end of the newest Spiderman movie, an English teacher is making a statement about how it's said that there are ten different themes that exist in all fiction writing. She counters this argument by saying there is really only one, "Who am I?" It's an interesting statement, and I think one that does not entirely remain solely in the realm of fiction writing. In fact, I think it's a question that I'm attempting to answer currently.
Reading this - eight months later - it's interesting to see that exactly nothing had changed about my opinion of where I was compared to how I felt the day I put in my notice.  It seems that I always knew I wasn't living and wasn't ready to take the plunge and find out what else life had to offer.  Now that I have, I can still say that I have no idea.  I'm not sure what will happen next, but with various phone calls and interviews along the way, in addition to the constant thought of a bit of travel, I'm sure that something will come along.

I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center

Five years ago a good friend told me something about "living on the edge."  I couldn't tell you if five years ago me had any idea what that meant.  "If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much room" she would say, and she sure liked to repeat it. 

Five years later, I'm sure that the edge exists.  So it goes.  I've found myself on the edge of santity, sleeplessness, solitude, bitter defeat, the law, and (on occation) common sense.  The edge isn't a place that exists on any map.  It's not somewhere that you can just wake up at one morning, and I'm not even sure if it's a place as much as a thing.  The edge is a forbidden world that exists only when you realize the Garden of Eden needed to be spiced up with a few apples.

In twenty-six days I'll leave my job of (at that time) 2 years and 10 months.  As of right now, I have no idea what will happen on day twenty-seven.  I am quitting my job at Epic without having a replacement lined up - something that flies directly in the face of whatever stands for conventional wisdom and common sense in the days of 8% unemployment.  It's this life change that is once again bringing me back to the edge, a place that I'm retrospectively realizing I've been away from for too long.

It's been written that, "out on the edge you can see all kinds of things you can't see from the center."  In a way this quote summarizes why I'm quitting; I was offered a guaranteed future in the center with a complimentary bag to put over my head.  In the end I decided to say "no" and am once again looking for a razor's edge to surf.  The extent of the adventure has yet to be determined.  It's possible that I move to a new city and pick up right where I've left off, which would make this entire story a rather depressing fairytale I'm only telling because I like the way it sounds.  It's also possible that the romantisism of travel will get the best of me and I will end up halfway across the world somewhere on the edge of life trying not to get sliced in half.