No going back, whatever it is or was . . .

So while I've been pretty quite for me in here of late, it's not for want of things going on. I've just been uncharacteristically short of words. There's plenty going on, especially thoughts whirling in my head. Talk of changes, of people we once were, and who we are, or can be have had me looking at my place in time and space.

Last night while listening to a friend recount some recent closure she got about one of her own past traumas, I was trying hard not to lament the fact that I'll never get that chance. In short she got to face her attacker, and take back from him her own power. Quite frankly, this was awesome for her, and I think it will make a difference in her life. So obviously I was really happy for her, even if the conversation triggered some of my own nightmare for me.

In "mopping up" from this I was suddenly reminded of the terrible B grade movie a friend of mine subjected me to years and years ago. These poor folks were marooned on this prehistoric island. In fighting to get off, they kept moving further inland, as each section of island was an evolutionary step forward. In fairly short order one of them remarked, we have to keep moving forward, because there's just no going back.

Life, regardless of what we do with it is very much like this island. In the multiverse theory of the universe everything that ever was, is or will be exists at the same time, and were we able to cross from dimension to dimension, plane to plane, possibility to the next we could "sort of" go back. For it postulates that time in a given place is just one possibility. That we can technically just from one to the next to "undo" a change by it never having happened. Assuming that our alter in that potential chose to leave. Otherwise, terrible things result like Entropic Cascade Failure at the cellular level. Not something you want to go through.

Anyway, each choice we make, is not unlike turns on a road, left or right, which way to go. Once you make a turn though, you can never really go back. Because even when you realize you mistake and imediately turn around, those are still seconds or minutes lost one will never get back. Then of course thoughts in your head during those moments once pondered are gone and so on. Like the island in the movie, you can never go back.

I am no more the same person today as I was yesterday, let alone 50 years ago. And yet, I am more than a sum of my experiences. I've trancended temporal reality so much and so often it's often difficult to distingusish now from when. My friends and family share a bond of common experiences and references that focus us in each others hearts and minds. Tomorrow I will not be the same person I am now, and that is every bit as it should be.

So, I am simply me, and you can choose to walk with me for a time, and make both of our joruneys better, or we can catch up down the road. Our connection to each other will remain, our history will have changed.

Do not lead me,
For I may not choose to follow.
Do not follow me,
For I may not choose to lead.
Just walk with me,
And be my friend.
For if you are my friend,
So shall it always be.

There is a song I'm partial to that is apprapro this post.

"She’s gonna make it
And he never will
He’s at the foot of the mountain
And she’s over that hill
He’s sinkin’ at sea
And her sails are filled
She’s gonna make it
And he never will

And you know it’s not like she’s forgot about him
She’s just dealing with the pain
And the fact that she’s survived so well without him
You know it’s driving him insane

And the craze thing about it
Is she’d take him back
But the fool in him that walked out
Is the fool who just won’t ask."

Oddly enough, at one point, for about the first year or so, I'd have taken him back. A year after that, pretty much right on schedule, he died. Yes, dead, as in dead and buried kind of dead. He wouldn't change, wouldn't grow, refused to see past his own poisoned heart, mind, body and soul to realize that we got together for a reason. We WERE (past tense) good together for a while.

After about that first year, I started on the slow path to healing and growth. I was working hard on being a better person, on surviving this. I'd changed, grown and was intent on continuing that direction in my life. He wasn't. Both our lives depended on investing in ourselves, our relationships, our heart, mind, body and soul or we'd die.

It didn't help that I known so many years in advance. It didn't help that I explained exactly how, why, and when he was going to die if he didn't change. "Don't change for me I begged, don't do it for you parents, friends, or anyone else. Do it for you. Do it now, start today, or just set the count down clock and watch it tick out the last few years of your life. You can live to be a crotchety old fart telling your grand kids to pull your finger, or you can die. Soon. You have three years of life left at this moment unless you change and grow. I cannot tell you the exact day, but you will not be alive for our anniversary three years from now."

She's gonna make it, he never did. She's over the hill he's burried under.

Hold on to your dreams, your feelings, your memories, friends and family folks, because everything else is one day going to be gone. Even your archaic preconcieved notions will one day desert you and truth will wash away those false gods of dogma. In the end it will all look different.

Yes, I'm changed, I'm not the same person I once was. Same for everyone else, even poor Earl who now knows the turth I spoke those years ago. She's gonna make it, he never will.

I miss you Earl. Sometimes more than others, sometimes so much it's like my heart is in a vice. So much that I wish I could die and get it over with. But what would that accomplish? Of course I'm different, so are you. Garth was right, she's gonna make it, you never will. I'm sorry.