Years ago, Mom, Eric and I went to Curaçao on vacation. We went to see the eclipse that was crossing the island, with Aruba being just too darn expensive. The eclipse following desire was the inspiration for my trip to Peru in '94. I can tell you, if you want to travel the world, go see eclipses. You'll end up in amazing places along the way.

I had brought along my spiffy new clarinet, as I was teaching myself how to play (a feat that surprised and impressed Eric, that someone could pick up a musical instrument on one day and be able to play a number of tunes on it fairly well a week or so later, having never played a reed instrument before). I spent a number of hours by myself, making sure Mom and Eric had time to be alone without the third wheel known as Kitt. I spent the time by myself, but I needed that time to think, away from life, away from distractions, away from work, to just think. I'd sprint on the beach, play my clarinet, and think.

Aside from the wind and lack of fresh milk, it was a good place to be to think.

Mom and Eric were more adventurous than I was, but I'd still head out with them to various ports or museums or other adventures. A wind-swept island with little vegetation doesn't offer much in the way of lush hikes, but some adventures could be found.

On our way to one adventure, we drove along a dusty, yes, wind-swept road, following the gentle rolling of the terrain. Where the ground was low, lush trees and bushes grew, away from the wind. Where the ground was high, the land was barren, as the ocean breezes kept anything from staying in one place long enough to set roots and stay.

Along one of these small hills with no vegatation was a house. Surrounding the house was a large number of cars in various states of disrepair. They were all older cars, seemingly waiting to be fixed up, rather than just providing parts for other cars. I tapped Mom on her shoulder, and pointed them out as we drove past.

"Each one of those is a Someday," I told her.

Those cars represented a Someday for the owner. Some day, he was going to get to them. Some day, he was going to fix them up. Some day, he was going to have that car to drive. Some day. Some day. Some day.

We all have our Somedays, that one wish, that one dream, that one goal we want to accomplish. Some of us have many more than one. Some of them linger a short while before disappearing. Some linger for a lifetime, never quite arriving.

A large number of my friends are selecting a word to define the new year (admittedly, some of those non-internet friends are doing them at my suggestion). I like the idea a lot, but instead of a single word, I am choosing a full sentence to define 2010 for me.

Someday is today.

Life is way, way, way too short. The end can come unexpectedly way too soon. I can't bear to arrive at the end and think, "But, but, some day I was going to ..." Someday has to be today, or it will never be.

Someday has arrived, and it is 2010.

I talked to Mom today. We chatted about various topics, and eventually came around to the topic of my project that I've been pouring so much time, effort, money and life into. After I gave her a status update, she told me how proud she was of me, that I found something I was so passionate about, that I was focused, and smart and going to succeed with this project. It's a great idea, solves the needs of many, and it was going to work well. But even if it doesn't work out, she's still proud of me, because it's about the journey.

After she finished speaking, and heard nothing but silence on the other end, she knew something was up. She waited for me to speak, which took me a longer time than she probably expected.

Kris had made the same comment, that the outcome doesn't matter, it's the journey.

It's the second time I heard that it's not the end, it's the journey that matters, and I have to say no. No fucking way. No god damned fucking way is this journey worth it. I can't sleep at night, worrying that I won't be able to raise the money soon enough to buy that land. My stomach clenches into knots when I tell people what I'm trying to do, and how quickly I need to do it, and what will happen if I fail. My head hurts most of the time. I can't run more than two miles given how out of shape I am. I've left bills unpaid, not because I don't have the money, but rather because I didn't think to send payment because the loss of that 30 minutes means one fewer bug, one fewer feature will be ready. I regularly curl up into a crying ball of fear of failing on this which means so much to me, before I realize that the fear isn't helping, that courage is moving through that fear, and I sit back down and start working again. I haven't spent much time with friends, and the time I do is peripherally when I'm in the same room as they are: they're playing games, I'm in the corner programming. The neighbors hate me because my yard looks like crap, I haven't had a chance to clean it up since harvest. My business clients are wondering where the hell I am half the time.

And all I can think about is how do I represent a multidimensional array with internal linked lists in a flat file with defaults so that I can reread it and generate it into another format. How do I add this feature or that feature or save this data in the database, and extract it again, and what the fuck is that bug? Shit.

I don't want this journey. I don't want to be sleeping fewer than 6 hours a night. I don't want my stomach in knots because I may fail. This is not the way I want to lose weight. I want to skip to the end. I willingly sacrificed my twenties to hard work, I should be sitting pretty. I should be coasting, happy with my career choices, two kids, working if I want to and, eh, whatever, if I don't.

So, no, it's not about the journey. This journey sucks. The only good part of this journey is that it's over one way or the other in 6 months. Statistically, that's only 0.5% of my life, but I feel like the stress of those six months are subtracting more than six months at the end. I've probably aged more in the last two years than I had in the previous 6.

Not worth it.

No, way not worth it.

So why not do it?

Because the alternative, the alternative of not trying, that's even worse.

For as long as I can remember, my meals have always included more liquids that pretty much anyone else I've eaten with. Where my classmates would often have milk left over after lunch in elementary school, I often wished I had two cartons. Where friends will finish a meal leaving their water glass untouched, I'll have gone through two glasses and be frantically looking for the bathroom before we'd have even left the restaurant.

I often wonder what my friends think about my always going to the bathroom after eating. Of course, I know they think I have the smallest bladder in the world, when in reality I just have it really really full all the time.

My pasta meals are often a bowl of sauce with a dash of spaghetti, instead of a bowl of spaghetti with an accent of sauce. And really, the whole purpose of a french fry is to get ketchup to my mouth.

You know, when I decided to fast with Kris so that I could sympathize with his plight (which includes resisting making chocolate brownies in the evening, because, well, that would be just too cruel), I expected the burrito I purchased at lunch to actually be edible.

Instead of the normal light salsa at lunch today, I ended up receiving a scorching, burn-your-mouth-just-thinking-of-it hot burrito. I think they may have substituted habanero peppers for the green bell peppers when making the damn thing.

How hot was it? So hot, I nearly puked.

Yeah, that hot.

So, though Kris may be able to fast from 6 pm until 9 am, I am unable to fast from 11 am until much past 10 pm. Of course, he has the 10 hours of sleeping advantage over me.

I've been putting books I no longer want up on Amazon for sale. Some of the books are first editions (which means they've been sitting on my bookcases for too long), and some are books recommended to me that I, after reading, didn't like. One of these books sold, so off I went to mail it today.

Amazon gives a mailing credit, usually $3.95. That's less than Priority Mail fees of 4.95, but I usually don't care about the extra dollar and figured the quicker arrival would be appreciated. Unfortunately, the book didn't fit into the newly sized 4.95 priority box, and the cost was $10.70. No longer worth the priority shipping from me. I chose the media mail, and hoped the 4-6 day delivery wouldn't be too painful for the recipient.