...putting the new magazine up on the website before I get a copy! Whenever I see the new issue online, I start having heart palpitations. I sit and stare at the mailbox, waiting for Mr. Postman to deliver the new issue. I long to discover the new articles , what new colorful pictures will be inside, and what new experiences I will have just by reading everyone's stories. I don't just bite my nails, I eat half my fingers off. If I smoked I would have a cigarette in my mouth 24 hours a day until my magazine arrived or I burned down my house. I try to sleep, but can't. Food loses all its flavor. Beautiful colors fade to muted grays and browns. I check the mailbox religiously, only to be disappointed when nothing but bills and credit card applications are inside. As days become weeks, life slowly loses meaning. I drag myself out of bed in the morning and can't crawl back in fast enough in the evening. I mope through the day. I wish I could just hibernate through this time of depression and disappointment...but I can't.
And then, when I hit rock bottom and I question why I even continue to struggle through this existence called living, I open my mailbox for what I swear is the last time (and I mean it), and a beautiful gleam of light pierces the darkness as I open the mailbox door. This mailbox, my cruel tormentor, the source of my disappointment and soon-to-be self destruction, suddenly becomes my source of greatest joy as it finally relinquishes my salvation....my newest issue of Primitive Archer Magazine! The gleaming white package surrounds me with the most beautiful light I have ever seen. It's like an angel from the heavens. I hear a chorus of "Hallelujah! Hallelujah!" as I open the package and the cool, glossy cover slides across my hands. That wonderful smell of a new magazine perks my nose....it's a delicious scent of newness, and of the unknown. The contents of the magazine have never been seen by human eyes before. I feel as though I am about to skydive for the first time. Overjoyed but apprehensive, I cannot resist any more. I open the cover and my breath suddenely stops as though I am in free-fall.
Like a man dying of thirst who first drinks from the spring, I drink in the pages, the colors, the stories. A rush of energy and life returns to my once drained body. My face smiles, the meaning of life is clear to me now. Colors return in a vibrance that overwhelms my ability to describe them, and I fall to my knees and weep. This is life, and I am alive!!
This beautiful magazine will be at my side for the next 2 weeks. I will take it out to dinner. It doesn't each much, but that's ok. I always finish off its portion. It spends the night with me, cradled in my arms. It doesn't talk much, but that's ok too. It doesn't have to. It's already given me everything I need.
