Some Words...

Once I had a dream that I could fly. I climbed up on top of a mountain, firmly planted my feet squarely beneath my shoulders - and jumped. I had no fear of falling. No questions about whether someone would be there to catch me. I leapt before I looked, I spoke before I thought, I lived before contemplation of what may come. I was a child then, even though my years were many in number and technically designated me as an adult. I lived without regret not because I was brave; because I was afraid.

Sometimes clarity only comes when you experience regret. When the mistakes of your past flutter carelessly around your existence until you notice them, acknowledge them, and place them in the archive of your memory. It is then and only then that you can classify yourself as an adult because living a life without forethought or consequence - is called 'childhood'.

In my life there have been many moments where regret has plagued my thoughts but if I'm honest with myself, in those moments there was little ownership of the actions that brought forth that regret. I've discovered that it's damn easy to regret something you've done and quite a harder task to take possession of it. Recently I was listening to someone apologize to me for the way they treated me and immediately following their apology they began to place the blame for their actions back onto me. As I stood there listening to how much control I apparently had over their actions, I remembered being in that place. A place where nothing was my fault and everything that had gone wrong in my life was because of someone else's actions. I remembered that as much comfort as I thought being unaccountable gave me, it also left me powerless to change my life into something better.

Once I had a dream that I could fly. I climbed up on top of a mountain, planted my feet squarely beneath my shoulders - and jumped. I had no fear of falling. No questions about whether someone would be there to catch me. I leapt before I looked, I spoke before I thought, I lived before contemplation of what may come. And then when I hit the ground and the only thing there to break my fall was my own self esteem - I stood up, brushed myself off, and realized only fools jump without a parachute.