Red Light! Green Light! (Or, Who Goes There?)

(On awkwardly praising, while simultaneously damning, the internet age...)

That's the name of the game as we age.

Red Light, Green Light.

A game we played in youth to test boundaries and to demonstrate how to control power, and exercise judgment, within our circle of companions.

Back turned.

Green Light! (eyes closed)

Go! Menacing, amiable, horde of our peers fast approaching from behind but without question with us from the start.

Red Light! (eyes open)

Stop! We spiiiin around darned-quick. Players all remaining. Standing still some. Moving others...

Caught you!

Back to the starting line!

Back turned again.

Green Light! (eyes closed)

Go! But this time. Some mysteriously run off in another direction.

With our backs turned, and our eyes closed, we might argue having not even noticed them slip away ... right?

Red Light! (eyes open)

Spinning around once more.

Stop! Yes, confirmed. Some have, indeed, disappeared out-right . A few, maybe even most, are still playing, though.

Take a deep breath, now ...

... and follow my lead - if you dare:

Turn your back around. One. More. Time.

Green Light! (eyes closed)

Go! Wait. What's this? Some of those numbers that had strangely disappeared ...

Red Light! (eyes open)

... are catching up again. How is that?

Stop ... hey! when did you start playing again?

Time-travelers! No fair!

We all make choices as we're playing along: Do we wish to remain in the game or is it our curtain call for this day, this decade, this lifetime?

As we age... it becomes an insidiously loaded question.

While we're wondering just what happened to the "run-offs", the now future 'Him or Her' of a former life, or the ones that didn't exactly jump right back in, if at all (ed. - guilty as charged...), something can occur that throws you for a complete loop.

They pull the ole 'rabbit out of a hat trick' and make things oh-so-very interesting. Without so much as a clarion they suddenly reappear.

It's a lot to allow in when the Fates fortuitously indulge 'Today, its just gonna happen ... meet so-and-so again', isn't it?

So much Newness spanning (and spinning from!) so many years (Who goes there!?).

"How have you been?"

So much to digest.

"Wow. Really?"

So much to contemplate.

"You are? You do?"

So much to consider.

"That's great! So..."

(Or, conversely, "Woah. Really? They did? When? That's ... that's tragic.")

We will, for the most part, happily welcome them back regardless of consequence; it's our sincerest will and desire after all...

But first,

"So, are you here for the long haul? Or, just stopping by for a quick visit?"

Tag!

You're 'It'.

(Yellow Light... eyes wide open)