Pacing Is Who I Am

My whole life, I've alwasy paced. That's not really the right word for it, but that's what my family called it when I would go out into the backyard by myself, and walk around in circles, for hours, just thinking and talking to myself and daydreaming.

When I was child, I would pace endlessly, spinning whole imaginary worlds out of thin air. Often, I'd take some sci-fi or fantasy story as a jumping-off point and populate my very own universe from there.

In my imagination I mixed together heroes, villains, places and ideas from just about everything a nerdy young boy is exposed to: Back to the Future, Star Trek, Star Wars, Batman, X-Men, The Hobbit, the Black Cauldron, the Dark is Rising, the Uplift series, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, King's Quest, Hero Quest, Space Quest, Metroid...

In high school, my time spent pacing quickly filled up with dreams of girls. I still went on lots of spaceflights and had mutant powers, but I started moping about girls and never really stopped.

When I got to college, I felt suddenly like the gates of an intellectual treasure vault had been opened, and I added podering profound new ideas to worldbuilding and dreaming about girls.

In adulthood, I've lost some of the childhood wonder I first brought to pacing. Too often, I fantasize about buying my first house, rather than building a battle dragon ranch on the moons of Iosubra. Lately, tax planning has crept into my pacing time.

That's the other thing, since I moved to SF, I've been pacing less. I tell my roommates that I'm "going on a long walk," but it's less that I need to get away from the house and more that I need to get away from the earth, from the material, day-to-day world and escape into my imagination.

I've realized lately I need to go on more of those long walks. To pace more. Nothing is more central to who I am than my imagination, my love of ideas, my need to talk things out, especially with myself.