Ever look back and wonder how you got to where you are now? There are some distinct and vivid moments in my life when I got the courage to look forward and dared to make plans and sighed with the thought of the effort required to reach that "some day."
For example, I remember every detail of the day I realized it would be 7 more years before I could pierce my ears (thanks mom and dad.) I was 6 and it seemed that every girl in the world was getting their ears pierced. So, I took a breath and decided that since every argument only added years onto the wait, that I should just determine how much longer I had and make the best of it. Seven long years I had to wait until Claire's jewelry store graced my ears with the largest pair of sterling silver cubic zirconium (the next best thing to real diamond studs in a 13 year old's mind) earrings they had. And so I paced myself for the long haul and I reached that day, and it was all I had hoped for, which explains the 5 additional piercings added since then (and no, none are in the places you're scared to think they might be... dirty people).
My whole point is that "some day" always becomes "the day" and wistfully "remember when?" And the "remember when" is typically the moment at which we assess whether or not it was all we really built it up to be; more than we'd hoped or despairingly regretful, with many shades of gray in between. Recent events in my life have taken me back to the beginning of the desperately hopeful "some day" and have dropped me off in the ever growing distance between "the day" and "remember when."
I've spent the majority of my life waiting for this "some day." Praying, planning, longing and expertly detaching myself (or so I though) in the effort to spare myself in case disaster strikes.
It struck.
This is what we don't realize in the beginning when we foolishly believe all will end well; we forget how time consuming that wishing on "some day" can be. How that "some day" becomes a stepping stone for the rest of your life, for the person you plan on becoming, for your ability to reach the next stepping stone, and ultimately greater heights, we forget that sometimes there's sand under that stepping stone of "some day." Most importantly, we forget that all things shift in life... it all depends on our equilibrium's ability to stay parallel with it. And that's where the inevitable self blame comes in. Because you have one fleeting chance on the "some day." One second divided into the thirds of future, present, and past, for it most certainly happens in that order and in that same moment. Reality is when that point around which all 3 distinctions in time have merged and changed life forever has passed and we were completely unaware. And when you have spent that much effort released on the sigh you exerted years ago in the planning, and you understand just how wrong it all went, well then you break a little, and part of you is lost, and you're older for it, and more tired, and a little less able to make the effort again.
I'm standing in the distance between "the day" and "remember when"
Guess it's time to make a new "some day," for the past is ever present when we carry it with us... and I don't need the extra weight.
