I Like My Own Pace (In response to "A Pace like That"

I am looking back on my childhood.

for the past seventeen years, I have lived at this pace.

No, not the pace of a child learning to read,

but the pace of a high school lunch.

It ends as quickly as it starts.

If I were to slow down, would I want it to speed up?

I want life to be like a marathon, you speed up to get ahead

and slow down to take it all in.

Kind of like a roller coaster,

after the most intense part of the ride it slows down

giving you time to relax and enjoy that moment and right

before the ride is over, there is that jolt of speed that leaves you breathless.

When life is like that, you are left with those sudden

moments of speed and excitement and then the moments of true joy.

Just like the worker in the manhole: people are shouting directions

at me telling me what to do,

but little do they know I am doing what I think is right

and going by life at my own pace.