Over There

I haven't written in a while, and I have no reasonable excuse. I've been doing a lot of other writing lately, plus life has been busy. I try not to beat myself up for not writing because of interference from life, because living tends to give me more to write about. Still, when I return to this blog, it never fails to bring up a few issues, both big and small.

As I get older (and older), I've started to question the linear nature of life's timeline. More and more it seems that life is actually circular. Instead of a series of chronological events, I feel like I've been experiencing some sort of spiral or interlocking rings. Or some intricate, but lovely design I might have concocted with my Spirograph as a child. I find my circular travels intersecting with people, places and feelings from other times and other adventures. Perhaps I've never truly left anything behind.

Enemies I loved and friends I betrayed. Lessons I either neglected or refused to learn. Memories I locked away, hoping to unpack someday when the shine was off them, when they were dull and colorless and less painful to look upon.

The circles bring second chances, too. Opportunities to try again, to improve upon history or to make grander, more elegant mistakes. All the opportunities and choices that passed me by or that I let slip through my tentative or tyrannical fingers. Will they present themselves again? And will I recognize them through older, jaded eyes?

A quote from Carrie Fisher echoes in my mind, where I clearly spend way too much time: "After all, nothing is ever really over. Just over there."