After the final flicker of the television screen when the room falls into complete darkness and my head hits the pillow, it begins. The past becomes the present in my mind; a mental inquisition of all of my bad decisions, missed opportunities and chances not taken. Nothing short of torture, the grip of my regret tightens around my body like a boa constrictor squeezing the air from my lungs.
I toss and turn while I try to focus on the positive memories, as there are a few of those as well, but on this night they are no respite from the darkness of my past. Stupid, so stupid! Why did I do this, why didn’t I do that!? If only I could go back and change it, make the right decisions, things could be different. An impossibility that hurts the most.
We’re all a collection of the mistakes we made and the choices we chose. A bundle of snap decisions made in the heat of the moment with little thought given, or perhaps in some instances an over abundance of deliberation in which the moment of a better choice passed on by. All the times we shied away from a good thing, for silly reasons. Guarding ourselves against the possibility of being hurt, and missing out on something truly great, even if it was to be fleeting.
In the youthful exuberance of care free days, it is hard to recognize these truths. You can’t see the forest through the trees, you live for the moment and give nary a care for the future. Oh sure, you have ideas in your head about the future, what it will be like and who you will become, but those ideas rarely manifest precisely. Of course you could obsess over your future, spend every day and night working towards it by studying for school or learning this or that, every waking moment in dedication to realize your dreams only to miss out on the present; miss out on your youth. There is a balance that must be found I suppose, such is the state of life and the universe… a balance perhaps, I never found.
Just before sleep finally comes, I tell myself lies. There is plenty of time to experience life, and to make better decisions. To do what I never got the chance to do, be whoever I want to be. I lie to myself and say that anything is possible.
I say, it is no lie, as long as you believe it…