When I'm feeling okay with myself and my life and where I'm at, I don't dwell on the past because whatever has happened has led me here and if I'm happy with here, why would I wish for anything different? I was thinking of that Star Trek episode (oh my god, oh my god, I am such a fucking geek) where Picard is dying and Q gives him a chance to change something in his past, which enables him to change a mistake he once made but results in him being a feeble little lieutenant instead of captain... I've always believed that past mistakes make us smarter and past upsets make us stronger... how can I wish for something to have happened differently, if I'm happy with where I'm at?

But if I'm not happy with where I'm at... well, just now I'm not so secure, not so sure of myself, I'm questioning my actions and examining my motives perhaps more than usual. I'm making big changes and taking some risks, and there's a great big window of doubt. Plus, I'm in the town where I grew up. Ghosts haunt me in Adelaide, and I seem to spend so much of my time here in a fog of nostalgia and evaluation... this place is the 'then', not the 'now'.

I know I'm not receiving any marks for clarity tonight, but I just came off the phone from a long chat with a dear old friend... even though every conversation picks up right where the last left off, we don't talk to one another nearly as often as we should, and I wonder if it's because it always opens old wounds. We're very close, but the shared experience of our training in our teens and how bad we felt about ourselves is something that inevitably comes up in conversation, and perhaps something we're both trying to forget and move on from. Doesn't help that I watched an old video tonight either.

When I come to Adelaide I find myself summarising the past year or whatever time interval has lapsed into a couple of hours of conversation, repeated several times over. Sometimes it makes me think shit, I have done okay for myself, as I rattle of achievements and landmarks... other times it makes me think about the time wasted, how they see me, what they think of me, am I really any different from that time when I hated myself... have I really come so far?

I'm hard on myself. Sometimes I wish life was like a computer game, I could go back and do something over if I didn't like the outcome... I wish life came with a restart option, sometimes... the choices you have to make as you go further on in life seem more and more restricting. It seems that potential is erased and options are eliminated... a few years ago there were thousands of potential lives I could lead, now the number is in the hundreds, perhaps less than one hundred... perhaps I should be happy that I am honing in on my destiny, but sometimes I can't help but mourn the unfulfilled potential that falls by the wayside.

I don't doubt myself so much, really... it's just that I'm in limbo, and in Adelaide, and perhaps it's a bad combination. Then again, a little bit of healthy self-evaluation never hurt anyone, right?

Before After

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