There are many things in my life that I wish I had done. I wish that I was magic, able to go back now and right some of them, being only human I can't. I don't know if this feeling is common or if it is just me being the overly emotional ass that I have always been. I feel as if there is a darkness closing in around me. A sense of the shortness of time available and there are so many things to try and atone for that I fear that few of them will be.
I don't have any reason to feel this way, my health is a concern, but there have been no mentions made of imminent doom or anything. Maybe it is my night demon that has me feeling this way. Regardless, here I am once again in those cold pre dawn hours awake and full of trepidations.
I've always been one of those people who rise early or sleep little. I think that it is my life in shadows of night that produce some of my clearest thinking. I can address the insecurity and the plain old loneliness of sitting in a dark world, before the others wake. I am only whole when I feel like someone needs me. By myself I revert to the uncertainty of a child who doesn't know if there is a reason to be happy or to be sad.
It isn't that others tell me or act as though I have been no more than a nuisance. I feel that way. Like an unpleasant burden that cannot be shaken free. I know, this is my imagination. The people in my life love me and need me and don't think these things. More silly insecurities.
I do have one particular fear, I'm afraid that I will not pick the right time to say or do things that need to be done. I can live with my mortality, I just wish I knew more about it all. I don't want to make people sad. I don't want to fail to get those things done in time and recently I've been shown that it can vanish in the blink of an eye.
Maybe I should write it all down and just trust it to someone else to get it into the right hands. I just know the heartache that it will bring and I can't bear being responsible for that addition to the grief. Am I just nuts or do other people worry about this stuff too?
Maybe a life is like a building, in its end it is large and impressive, but the fact of the matter is that it is all just grains of sand.
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daisyjane
toritto
Dr. Ziggy Mütter-Job
bluestocking babe
Jonathan Wolfman
skypixie0
Salon.com
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Be safe and well, my squid friend.
It is at such times that we turn inward. Our introspection often takes the form of self criticism. Since our society demands of each and every one of us "succeed" to such an impossibly high degree in matters financial, we tend to judge our whole life by our financial "success" rather than on such better scales as our honour, principles, honesty, loyalty, quality as a friend, neighbour, mate or parent.
As time passes our lacks in these areas make themselves felt during our introspective moments. It is no use to counter such feelings with thoughts of, "look, I make good money and take care of my responsibilities." because we "know" that our true responsibilities have nothing to do with money.
Unfortunately, our lack of attention to things other than financial has left us with only a vague scale by which to determine our level of success in them. This may, I think, be the cause of that formless, vague feeling of "something's wrong" that afflicts us in the wee hours when we have turned our minds inward.
It doesn't help much that, upon giving such things a bit of thought, we sense that we are not really up to par. As much as we might like to "go back" and change things, we can't. What's done is done. Oh sure there are one or two things we can atone for or make amends for but by and large what's once the milk is spilt, it's spilt.
It serves no good purpose to beat ourselves up over things we now think we'd like to do differently. We must just comfort ourselves as best we can with the knowledge that "at the time" every decision we made, seemed the correct one to make. At the time. At the time.
Yes, our hindsight has shown us that we made mistakes. Errors are the human way of learning things. Learn from them but we can't keep beating ourselves up over them. We can, however, try to do better. If we can handle that, then we're OK. If we insist on maintaining a deep sense of guilt and vague self-recrimination it can, it doesn't always, but it can, lead us into the depths of despair and depression.
I find it helpful to wipe yesterday's slate clean each new day, resolve to do my very best for that day, and let the days of the past remain in the past. I begin life anew every morn.
.
Keep talking.
The things around us are just bits of sand put together but those bits of sand are full of molecules and energy that is beyond the organic. There is more here than meets the eye.
Rated!
No, you're not alone in feeling this way. So many of us are right there with you. Thank you for expressing it so eloquently, dear Bobbot.
~R~
"... but the fact of the matter is that it is all just grains of sand"
… or arrangements of the alphabet.
Arrangement well done. r
You are not alone in your feelings and questioning, so please stop apologizing for things none of us can control. I'm going to offer this verse quoted from one of my favorites, W. Blake, and ask you to remember it anytime you feel like this.
"[To] see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour."
R♥
I have a constant internal battle going on, with the introverted and introspective side of my *self* gets chastised by the side of me that thinks I should be accomplishing more *good works,* utilizing my talents for more than simply chronicling my own pitiful history and thoughts. I don't fear the Ultimate Judgment because no other being, human or divine, could judge me more harshly than I do myself. Meanwhile, time passes, friends like you have near-death experiences and inertia has my feet firmly planted where I am.
Lezlie