KMS Blog

Too excited to sleep – it seemed impossible, especially as a middle-aged man whose existence had grown as regular and reliable as a Sunday sermon.  Early in life, as one flies through their twenties and thirties, life is defined by a frantic change; friendships dissolve around marriages, whole new families are born and grow, and vocation is marked by an upward advance and ambition.  As the forties give way to the fifties, though, one begins to dread change, for more often than not it means something tragic, unexpected; the death of a parent or friend, cancer, the loss of employment, the decline of the body, or the uncertainty that waits beyond the few remaining breaths of an exhausted marriage.  Middle age, as Will experienced it, was defined by a methodical, stubborn steadiness.   And yet after four months of traveling to New York City every week, like some kind of beatnik, his methodical patterns, those familiar thoughts and daily routines and beliefs, had all been quietly exposed.  Will had became aware, slowly at first, then more rapidly, of just how much his life had slipped into unconscious routine, and once exposed to a critical eye, he found the revelation as startling as it was invigorating, and began to peel away the layers of his languorous existence to see what lay beneath.  For the first time in as long as he could remember he was awaking excited to start his day and moving with a new energy, and a new appreciation, of just how incredible life could be.  He felt driven by passion even when doing simple tasks, and strong emotions – often contradictory – ran through his mind at the most inopportune times.  It seemed like he had somehow mostly slept through the last decade of his life without even realizing it.