"For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love."
-Carl Sagan

"Life moves pretty fast, if you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it"
-Ferris Bueller

Quotations provided by guest contributor Chris Lyle.

If Chris's quotes are true, I can only think of one thing. Can one ever take a day off? If I'm tired of being such a small pawn with nothing to give but a white flag, am I ever allowed to attempt to be the big player, the one who sacrifices everything to be known. If I'm tired of plodding along observing the same flowers, am I ever allowed to let my legs go and feel my hair flap freely on top of my head?

But as I've sat in my lounge for a couple of hours shrinking myself to the petite soldier that trots through memories in the same consistent manner, I feel like I've come to an understanding. Love isn't an actual portal through which I travel to bear the enormity of the world. Being stagnant in order to perceive the entire world isn't logical or full of life. Instead, I choose to bath myself in the cleanliness of love each morning to protect me from all the earth and mud that can be flung at one so small discovering something so grand. Instead, I choose to understand that it's all about caressing the warm fingertips of love. Sometimes it's best to soak in life's beauty on a rooftop where you tell time simply by the position of constellation, or sometimes it's best to roar through life's heart racing ferocity at seventy-five miles an hour on the roller coaster that you finally gather the strength to tame.

Love and life are not video games that you try and conquer only to be rewarded with an anticlimactic "game over". They're friends that you never get sick of. They're the movie stars from your hometown. They're a swirling collection of people, places, and experiences. They're us. Stripped and peeled down to our purest expressions and motives.