Returns

You show up late to a wedding
reception, missing not only the Chicken
Dance and all the versions of the Electric 
Slide, but also the moment when the bride
and groom cut the cake and try to cram
the largest morsel into each others' 
mouths. All the slices have been served; 
only a few mangled pieces are left, thick
with buttercream and too little cake.
You think about your youth, that sequence
of finish school early, marry early, 
for fear of missing the train called 
adulthood. Should you have waited, gone 
to more parties, hung out with the shinier
and more ambitious crowd, focused on those 
with one eye on real estate and the other 
on trading futures? Now, approaching
the later threshold of life, you take
stock of what you have and what you 
can leave behind; some kind of bequest 
or legacy. Have you told your daughters 
your most important stories, what they 
should do with all these books and all 
the trinkets you saved from your other 
lives? You've never had a financial 
adviser but now you're standing in
the lobby of his building, about to take 
the elevator up to your appointment. Perhaps 
this means something in you still believes
in the future, something now willing
to join the game of risk and gain.