Unlimited

*sigh...*

There's something about the scene above that always makes my interest pique, my heartbeat speed up ever so slightly, and expands something inside my body and soul. It's a pleasantly uncomfortable feeling.

There's something about a blank notebook - those pristine pages, waiting - just waiting - for me to fill them with adventure, drama, possibly the most epic adventure ever read! I can't leave them there on the shelf, begging to be filled with romance, journeys to unknown lands, and heroes that don't know they are yet.

So I buy one. Or two. Ten or thirteen if the price is good. I take them home, and I choose one whose cover-color or design speaks to me. I open it, breathing in that new paper smell (and wonder how it can smell so wonderful when the paper-mill in my home-town stinks so badly!)  My eyes roam over that white panorama of undiscovered possibilities like Catherine and Heathcliff over the moors, taking in every corner, every dimple, every line.
 
But then, just before my pen touches that pristine page...

A paralyzing fear stops me cold.

It is a strange terror, mixed with longing. The moment that ink stains that paper, I am beyond the point of no return. I will have spoiled that page. I will have committed it to a fate that may not live up to all those imagined possibilities.

I may fail.

Sometimes I simply can't overcome it, and I put the pen down - a last minute governor's reprieve for the notebook.

Sometimes, I am brave. I mark that paper. I ruin it. I limit its future.

Sometimes I fail.

But sometimes, every glorious once in a while, that moment of ruination results in something fantastic! Sometimes, the possibilities get wider, the adventure gets more exciting, the romance more breathtaking, and a hero emerges even I hadn't counted on.

That's why I can't pass a stationery aisle without at least a passing glance.

Because at least for that moment, the possibilities there are endless!