It's dried and crusty husk clung to my finger, refusing to accept its fate: to be flung into some unknown corner and forgotten. I was not going to let that happen to me. I had made several realizations about my life, and it wasn’t too late. I could still change and not wind up a forgotten and useless mass on the tip of life's finger. I would survive.
It wasn't always useless and shriveled. It had started thick, full of substance and moldable to whatever position I might fill. It was adaptable and full of potential, just as I was. As time passed on however, it just stayed there; clinging to one place on my finger, unmoving as the sands of time blew over it, ignoring it. It became nothing, just as I was. It could have done many things, but it stayed in one spot, just as I did. It rapidly faded, losing its potential, just like what was happening to me.
It wasn’t completely perfect. Before being plucked from the rest of it's ilk, it had already dried at the edges, setting it apart as an irritation. Rather than change and become useful, it stayed there, abandoned by its society: an outcast. I had done the same thing; I had separated myself. I was in this dismal station because I couldn't grasp change. The rest of my kind moved on to better things, while I remained, clutching to the gates of time, fired from my job due to lack of new skills.
I imagine it wasn't always so. I'm sure beforehand this now dried lump one was indistinguishable from its mates. It might have had a job sure, but it was a nomad. It moved freely through a complex system, changing to suit its environment, just as I once did. I was fresh out of high school, and had so many possibilities. I had a girlfriend, a promising future; overall I had a life. I was an up and comer. If it weren't for my wife's traumatic death, I probably would have been successful. Come to think of it, that probably happened to the lump as well: life threw it a loop and it couldn't handle the change.
Things that don't change get behind the times; they become obsolete. Life has ways of removing those who serve no function. Just as easily as I plucked this irritation, so could life pluck me. If I were to go, how would others remember me? I would be forgotten. Long past my prime, and unyielding to the times, I would be remembered as an irritation that was (thank goodness) removed. That’s not how I wanted to be remembered. I was a caring guy who loved his wife deeply. I hadn't been popular and she was the guiding light of my life. Every success I had I owed to her. Her loss had put me into a rut. I no longer had the courage she gave me. I was nothing more than the underweight asthmatic nerd who didn't know which end of the putter you used to hit the puck into the field for a home run.
As I flung the booger into a nearby trash can, I was filled with resolve. My wife wouldn't want me to give up. She would want me to live life even better, since I had to live for both of us. Even as the booger shattered into its many unfulfilled hopes and dreams, mine grew and swelled. I could hear my wife's words of encouragement as 15 years of pain and sorrow turned into a surge of motivation. As I reeled my life back together, I felt my wife's spirit welling up in my chest, giving me life, and I knew she was proud of me. I know now it was her who arranged my incident with the snot, and it was her who, in her infinite creativity, reached out to me and made my life worth living again.
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