is that it has no respect of place or person or time. It has its own agenda and descends on the unsuspecting mind whenever it decides to.
As quickly as it descends, it evaporates, leaving us feeling empty, full, drained, energized and a half dozen other emotions and feelings that I can’t quite put my finger on.
I am very thankful to see May coming to an end. I usually enjoy it, but of late, it has become a millstone around my neck. The beauty of nature, the loveliness of spring, the return of the fireflies … they take a back seat.
I don’t wish that to be so. Were it up to me, I would categorize memories and take them out only when I wanted to see them, not when they simply decided to materialize.
There is nothing, however, inherently wrong with feeling aggrieved. No shame in reliving past moments. There is only the feeling of discombobulation that comes with the memories.
What good are they really? Once someone is gone forever, what possible good can come from remembering things that are past and can never be again.
It seems to me like an aberration of normalcy.
It doesn’t manifest itself only to those who have lost people they care about to death. Oh no. It gleefully torments those who find themselves thinking of ones they have lost to circumstances; missed opportunities and words left unsaid.
Words said.
Words that can never be retrieved.
They are all part of grief, part of wishful thinking, part of regret.
I don’t want to regret my life.
Yes, many things have happened in my past that I would happily pay to have removed from the record.
But what is done is done. What is said is said. What is unsaid is unsaid.
There are no do-overs.
So that leaves only this … to live life, each day, to the best of our ability; to give, to love, to find the good, to seek the light, to be content.
There are people in my head that I don’t want to think about … maybe they are gone, maybe they never were, maybe they were but now aren’t.
Maybe they are figments of my overactive imagination. It is hard to tell.
What I do know is this … this life is mine to live, mine to make the most of. If at the end of it, there are regrets, I will have nobody but myself to blame.
A Photographer's Heart 