Robots have to wonder

Not very often, but I suppose more than a few times, I've let myself wonder if maybe my life wasn't supposed to be a race without a finish line, stumbling around and trying to find some escape from the unquenchable fear that always follows me, some distraction from the emptiness that always threatens me. 

I think it's often when I first awake, when I've not been able to guard my thoughts against facing reality again, that I can feel the permanence of the toll that is taken on me by everything in my life that's wasted my time, everything I've done to waste my time, everything that's made it more and more difficult for me to get where I was trying to go, to get, where?  To some mythical place where I don't have any reason to be disappointed, or dissatisfied, with myself or the world. 

Still, I think there's some kind of sense, deep or hidden in my mind, that I can find somewhere that I don't need to be anybody, that I can be with all the people who I enjoy the most, and nobody's going to care if I laugh too loud or need one more hug, or if I'd rather build sandcastles for a few hours just to watch them wash away again and know it doesn't matter because I have all the time in the world. 

I wonder if I'd never awake feeling my life running out with every breath if there were some way to erase this fantasy from my mind, this glittering image of a reality that could exist if I could ever leave myself behind.  Then, maybe there would be no reason to feel as though the daily erosion on my life was anything other than what it should be.  But for now, instead, I let myself wonder from time to time, and my sandcastles are left alone, safe in some corner of my mind.