What Could've been

Sometimes I wish that we could know for a fact that there was no going back,
that the paths we chose not to take, the rocks we didn't overturn
would remain shrouded in mystery forever, such that
those whispers of what could've been wouldn't be relevant.

It's a terrible habit to continuously look back at the choices you've made,
and wondered if it's the right one.

When all we really should do is be steadfast in our chosen direction, and work with the world we've nurtured for ourselves.

It's finished.

Every so often I have this identity crisis.
It occurs whenever a significant hurdle has been completed.

To find that the nemesis which defined you for so long has been vanquished,
it leaves a void.

Where you were once so accustomed to the next page of your story simply being a continuation of the last,

all of a sudden, it's a new chapter.

And so begins the desperate search for something new.

You still recognize me

What a difference a few weeks, months, years can make.
How different we become without really realizing it.
How foreign we are to what we are now and who we were.

Life winds its convoluted way through time and space, junctions form in the most seemingly random places
and yet they couldn't have been any more perfect.

An old acquaintance, long written off.
A quotation, long forgotten.
A feeling, long lost.

Something reminds you of who you were.
Pulling yourself out of the present and onto a higher plain,
gazing at where you've been and what you've learned and what you've become.

Seeing where you've gone astray and lost your way.

All because someone still recognized you.

Forgetting

It seems that the older I get, the more broken I become.
But it's because I keep forgetting everything,
the lessons we've learned in our youth, the experiences that we've carried with us all these years.

I've let them go too easily, and now I'm finding myself reaching out for them again.

Begging for them to come back.