Andrew J. Lederer

Even as I waxed effusive about normal people yesterday, I knew I was being in some sense disingenuous, though the representation of my thought process was authentic.

Truth is, it was made abundantly clear to me that the happy normals I spent time with in Wales had made decisions that placed them on the opposite side of the compromise scale from where I sit but, still, they are on that scale. They wanted artistic lives of risk and excitement (like my package of vagabond whimsy) but decided that too much comfort could be lost by taking those rides.

Thus, they probably sit awake wondering about the lives they could have had, just as I wonder about the domestic seductions they represent. But that doesn't mean the compromise scales are balanced when our notions are weighed against each other.

That my opposite numbers have regrets does not mean my choices are as good as theirs.