Welp, there there’s no turning back is there? Clocks don’t go backwards do they? Time just keeps going forward. Doesn’t it? Whatever happened, happened . . . and it kinda can’t be undone. Can it?
Sucks.
Sometimes, if I dwell on things right before I go to bed at night, I’ll have a Hallmark dream. You know, the kind of dream where whatever happened in your past is wiped away and you get the opportunity for a total do over. Once in a while, I’ll drift off into a time machine of sad regrets and poor decisions, of happy times and smart choices, all leading me down other paths I should’ve taken and different options I could’ve chosen.
Can you imagine? Years would be given back. Time would stand still. Happy moments would never end. Poor decisions would be reversed. If only clocks turned backwards and Superman really did exist and could fly around the earth counterclockwise and make the past the present. But, no such luck. Only in my dreams.
My time machine of slumber would take me to the day I had a chance to start a 401K in my twenties, but didn’t. It would take me to the first day of college orientation when I chose my major, then changed my mind. It would send me to the first time I met that dude and gave out my phone number, when I should’ve run for the hills. It would drop me off at the car dealership right before I signed that purchase agreement, and bought that sluggish car. Sigh.
Looking back can give a lot of woulda, coulda, shouldas with no chance for do overs. Fast forward to now and you kinda have to sit in the mess that you made back then and the choices that you thought were appealing and good and the best for you at that time. Then you kinda gotta look at those choices and go . . . dang, what was was I thinking?
The good thing is that if you make piece with what went before, the choices you made, and the things left undone or unsaid . . . you can start anew each and every day. The sundial on past regrets and wrong pathways taken can’t be reversed, but looking forward and changing old habits and old mindsets and old ways is encouraging and possible.
Take a glance backwards and see where you were, what you did, and what you could’ve done differently. Look in the mirror and confess your wrong doings to yourself. Rectify your modi operandi going forward and change old habits and mindframes. I tell ya, if it didn’t work before, it won’t work now. Step out and try something new. Then, take it from there.
My choices are mine. I own them. And I’m stuck with them. But no matter how old I am, how whiney I am, how faithless I am, how pissed off I am, how woe is me I am, or how confused and tired and of kilter and over it I am, every morning I wake up and every moment that I am blessed to be alive, I have a chance at a do over.
Though time stands still for no one, and Superman really doesn’t exist, and unfortunately won’t spin the earth counterclockwise and take me back to those points in time I’d rather change. . . I still have a chance. I’ve made peace with my past, well most of it anyhow, so onwards and upwards I shall go.
