February the 19th, in the Year of Our Lord 1387

Today I turned 29, and I must confess I'm experiencing what Father Theobald calls a “crisis of middle life.” Mathematically speaking, my life is well more than halfway over, and what do I have to show for it?

I have spent my entire life in the village of Wessex. I plow the fields, I pay my tithes, I try to sire additional children (may God rest the souls of the first six), and for what? To grow old drinking weak ale and dying of rickets? No. I refuse.

Eleanor says I’m being dramatic, but how can I not be?

I no longer wish to ride an aging plow horse with a bad attitude and a dented soul. And yet, when I ride to the horse dealer and request a sleek, red mustang, I am met with ridicule.

“Geoffrey,” he says, “thou art but a humble farmer. Thou hast no need for a mustang.”

Instead, he tries to sell me a mini-caravan.

“The mini-caravan is a fine, sensible choice for a man of thine age,” he says, “ample storage, comfortable ride, seats the whole family. Comes with an oxcart attachment shouldst thou need more room.”

Oh, wonderful. Nothing says ‘I have given up on life’ like trudging into town in a practical four-mule wagon. I deserve to ride through the village atop a fine, muscular beast, feeling the wind in my ever-thinning hair as the maidens turn their heads in admiration.

Besides, I am hardly the only man in this village who desires a bit of reinvention. Thomas the Dairyman just joined a Crusade. A Crusade! He says it’s about reclaiming the Holy Land, but I suspect it’s because he’s bored and Margaret won’t let him buy a second cow. If Thomas hath his crusade, what, then, shall be my righteous calling?

In my younger years, I dreamed not of war, but of song. I longed to be a bard, wandering from tavern to tavern, singing ballads and breaking the hearts of young damsels. And so, I have taken the first step. I traded this season’s crop of barley for a lute and have begun teaching myself to play. My fingers ache, my neighbors complain, and my family has no barley… but I press on.

“Oh, Geoffrey,” Eleanor says, “thou art nearly thirty. Stop embarrassing thyself.”

Am I embarrassing myself, Eleanor? Or am I simply the only one in this godforsaken village with the courage to dream?

I know what the townspeople say about me: Geoffrey has lost his mind! Geoffrey hath begun dressing like a squire half his age! Geoffrey believes he could have become a knight had it not been for his knee injury.

Let them talk. Let them whisper that Geoffrey has changed, that Geoffrey has become “difficult.” I am done living for others. If Thomas can go reclaim Jerusalem and if Osbert the Butcher can join a monastic order on a whim, then surely I can ride into the next village on a mustang and make my fortune as a bard.

Besides, the apothecary just sold me an elixir of virility, and I am feeling quite invincible. The merchant assured me the stomach pains and temporary blindness are perfectly normal side effects.

God be with me.