Map Of The Future

Taking a brief long pause from my assignment, I feel rather contemplative of everything that’s happened. I’ve also been back-reading through my own blog and am somewhat shocked with how much of it I have conveniently hidden away in a part of my subconscious I thought I had discarded.

I thought that over the last few years, I had thrown away all the dusty boxes containing my old memories, that I had come to terms with them and had finally cleared the dust out of my closet. Clearly, I must have been mistaken and reading back on some of my posts from those not-so-clear moments in my life has only served to re-open some of the wounds from those periods – the ones from which I thought I may never escape.

How long are we to stare into our past and take it as precedence by which to set our futures? Are we destined to look forever backwards and never reach our full potentials, too afraid of what we were and the possibility that someday we might retreat back into those moments that we wish we could forget? I can’t say honestly that it is something I wish to ever do. I fear the revisiting of those moments in my life and unfortunately, a bi-product of that fear is the never being able to let go that I so desire. And so I must walk through the rest of this lifetime with this burden on my shoulder and a frequent stab-in-the-heart reminder that things never were and never will be perfect; that there IS no such thing as perfect. There is only the possibility of better, and if that is all that life has to offer, then I would be foolish not to take it.

And so, what of the future? If I am to be followed by ghosts then wouldn’t it be wiser to walk hand-in-hand with them than to have them at my back, having to look over my shoulder constantly awaiting their inevitable re-absorption into my soul? I like to think so. I’ve tried forgetting them. I’ve tried denying them and now, the time has come to accept them, embrace them and hope with all my might that they have made me a stronger, if not better, person because of them. I can’t take these things back. I can’t will them away no matter how hard I try; they are simply there, yet not there, at the same time. I dare not let them consume me but I cannot deny them for if I do, I would be denying myself.

I have to set a course for my future, for our future.

I didn’t see this coming. I didn’t see him, I didn’t see myself here; nor did I see the past before it happened. It isn’t possible and it isn’t possible in hindsight to take it away again. I suppose what I’m getting at is that perhaps this is what some people call “fate”. I don’t believe in it for two seconds. I am not that foolish, nor that willing to believe in some higher power controlling my every move and the inevitable outcomes of decisions I am yet to make. They are mine to make and those choices alone will shape the course of my life and where I am to end up.

But does that mean that there are many alternative realities which I could possibly be living right now? I shouldn’t have thought so. Perhaps, in some small way, we make the choices we make because of some unknown foresight, that we cannot be privvy to should we stray from what some might call our “true path” or “destiny”. I like to think that I make the decisions I make because I believe that they will take me to the right place – much like we choose the route we drive based on the volume of traffic, the time it will take to reach our destinations and the likelihood that we will arrive there in good timing. I also like to believe that the people in our lives make decisions equal to those we would make, due to some mutual need to gain common ground, that people perhaps gravitate together not through “fate” or “destiny” but because somehow, their consciousnesses also wish to gain the highest value from their destinations – that they too might take them to the right place in their lives. It is simply the cross roads where our lives meet where we choose what is to happen to our individual paths and the choices we make, be it consciously or not, determine whether or not we end up on the same path or different ones.

I made the choices. I put myself on this path and I alone must deal with its daemons, as I must its ghosts and its pleasantries. However, I think the fault with my mind lies within my ability to decide my future.

It has been this lack of fore planning which leaves me feeling somewhat empty at times. I fear the unknown, but I fear failure even more.

So I must plan my future. I must spread the map ahead of me and decide which path I wish to take and how best to get there, taking my past with me.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that you cannot leave your past behind. No matter how hard you try. All it does is sit behind you, like a massive weight chained to your ankles, forbidding you to move further forward, halting your progress at every opportunity.

I would like to hope that when I reach my end destination, he is there with me, at my side, both of us bearing our ghosts, hand in hand. I hope that to be the case. But I cannot know for sure.

Hope. Perhaps our only weapon against the ghosts we must walk with during our time on this planet.

どうかこの指輪を受け取ってくれませんか.

I’ll never stop asking. Maybe one day, your path will lead you to asking me. And I’ll wait. Patiently. I know where the crossroads lie now, I’ll not take another step until you reach me.