Maybe

I wonder if its possible to live a life where we all an claim we have very few regrets. I wonder what such a life would have looked like. Would I have considered it simply to be myopic in that it simpo means he wasn't open to the other possibilities having been even worth a consideration? Or would I have seen the person to have been bold enough, and steadfast too, to have gone ahead in pursuit of what he has decided on. Like the Sinatra song, the man who goes on his life celebrating that he can say "I did it my way."

What would it be like to live that way? I can't even begin to imagine, much less imagine myself ever getting there. Very much a could-have-been sort of guy, I guess I spend a lot of time lost in my muses of the things in my life that could have been if I had taken a different turn down the road of my life. If I had made it into RI, which my sister desperately wanted me to try for (for the record, thank God I didn't..), if I had gone into NJ like I always wanted instead of choosing to stay in SAJC, if I had chosen to pursue my studies in the science field instead of the arts (since I always did score better in science), if I had joined Navigators instead of Campus Crusade... just how would my life have looked like?

And I can't imagine myself being able to say that of all the thousand upon thousands of decisions I've made in my life, I've lived it all without a lot of regrets. The song seems to resound with nothing more than just sheer bravado. Maybe the only ones who sing the song are those who don't ever wonder about how things could have been otherwise, or who chose not to allow for the possibilities that always are.

And regrets are as much about the things that had been said and done, as they are about the things left unsaid and undone. The encouragement I failed to give, the promise of prayer that I failed to keep, the forgiveness I never did beg, and even the words of rebuke I shd have given but chose to withold. It seems that everyday when I reflect upon the day that had passed, there are so many things I wish I had done differently. Words I would have said differently, food that I should have stayed away from (hehz...), acts that I should have weighed more carefully before doing, and many other things which I shd have but didn't do...

Maybe that's why life has been such a burden sometimes. Maybe that's why I wonder why I always feel more defeated than victorious in my life. Maybe that's why I have such a pre-occupation with redeeming my past. Maybe that's why I spend so much time looking back, and getting trapped in the past. The accumulation of regrets only increase with each passing day, and so everyday I wake up with an even greater sense of urgency that I shd do something about it - matched only by the lethargy brought on by the despair of the assumption that its too late, that there are too many things to be put right for it to be done. Crippled by the fear of demons that I've made up inside my own head, as Jars of Clay sang.

Maybe that's why I still can't sleep. Maybe that's why my sleep keeps being haunted by dreams. A lot of strange dreams. Bad dreams, bizaare dreams, deja-vu dreams...

So much so that I'm afriad to even go to bed.