As the New Year draws near, I fear I will be visited by spirits.

Not the three spirits of Dickens' A Christmas Carol. 

For me there will be no ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future to bring me to some greater truth.

No, as the New Year approaches I find myself visited by ghosts of a entirely different kind that Ebeneazer Scrooge might shudder at.

I find myself visited by the ghosts of myself - the selves of moments past and left long behind in places I can't return.

And, unlike miserly Scrooge who found clarity in the longing of for the past, richness of the present and regret of the future, I do not know what these crowding ghosts have to tell me.

For they are figments of a troubled mind, one lacking certainty.

Some of these shades form before my mind's eye as children - the me of sour faces, memorized Disney movies and lonely days seated against the chain link fence at recess.

Some take on the form of an arrogant child, excellent student and fat teenager whom teacher's believed would become something great.

Still others take the form of a weak, wailing college student facing love's first rejection. 

Others are hollow-eyed and coffee addicted.

More take on the form of the student who disappointed trusted professors, a reporter overwhelmed by death and deadline, and a mediocre young woman putting on the aura of purpose and success.

They settle in comfortably at this time of year.

But, unlike Scrooge's ghosts, they are silent. 

They watch me and wait for something I have yet to name.

Each time I see these former selves, my feelings grow muddled and I am as confused as Scrooge was enlightened by his spirits.

I am left to wonder if these images are indictments of a life of potential that has not been and will not be realized.

Are they regret?

Are they reproach for wasted time when others my age are starting aid agencies, writing novels and building lives that will be recorded by history?

Do they sit on my sofa, steal my cheese and flip through my channels as reminders of what my life more often than not is?

Or are these ghosts manifestations of the regret that we all feel for the time we've spent - good and bad - that we can never take back? Of the newness we lose as each moment moves with blinding speed from future to present to past?

I'm not sure what my ghosts are trying to tell me.

I never am at this time of year.

The only thing I am certain of is that their visits will only continue as the years go by and, as more moments pass me by, the ghosts - these lost selves - will multiply. 

Of discovering that greater truth - of having that moment of "I haven't missed it!" - I am not so sure.

I suppose I'll have to find more chairs. 

My ghosts aren't fond of standing.