I was thinking today as I do during the summer when I have the luxury of being free. The rain and lightening were pounding my patio, but I sat there smoking a cigarette comtemplating the rain. I have been wondering if we take the events of our lives and try to turn them into clues of our future. Is the relationship you had at 23 really an oracle for the one you are presently in? I don't think so anymore. There was a time that I would have journaled and maybe even written a letter to the poor bastard. Now I see it as a complete waste of time though my psychic might disagree. Is there a middle ground? A way to balance the past and the present; it is called the present.

What if we stop looking at the outside world to make sense of our internal monologue? Will it even make a difference? Recently I googled an old college roommate who runs a music blog that nobody reads. She always had a specific look going that was very late 90s Eurotrash and we spent hours goodwilling together. We went to shows and I would sometimes get us backstage because boldness got me everywhere back then. Then I graduated she went cold to me. It hurt for years, but then I realized something. I don't care what people think and she lived to see a reflection of her best self in other's eyes. Ultimately, that was what divided us. She wanted to thought of as an indie queen who knew all the bands that ceased being important to me when I had to get a real job.

But as I thought more about her, the more I saw how consumed she was by the way others thought of her in a way I never could. Nothing that anyone could ever hurt my feelings the way I only know how to do to myself. No one will ever give me the secret to life that I seek. Now what if we completely stopped defining ourselves through our relationships to others and just lived.

Are we too social to do that? Or are we trained to be liked because we lack imagination. No longer would we worry if we weren't married our the state of our relationships? The past can be painful for two reasons: a) we can't be loved little darlings  anymore b) we were never loved little darlings. But does it matter?