Past and future

As I face an uncertain future (isn't it always, though?), I find myself thinking a lot about the past lately. I think about the opportunities I had and the opportunities I could have had but never pursued. I wonder where I'd be right now if I had. I remember having so much potential. My career choice was a mistake. I know that. I could have been anything, done anything. My marriages were certainly mistakes. There's no question there. My first husband was on impulse and was meant as a means to escape. Instead, it just left me more trapped with fewer choices left to me. It lasted only five months, but I knew it was a bad idea even before I said my vows. I just thought, maybe, I could pull it off. My second marriage was far worse. He was unworthy even to date me, but I fell for a charm at first and then had this overwhelming need to fix him. That's pure foolishness at the outset. It was pure misery. I've been thinking about the ones who got away, too - the ones I loved and the ones the ones I thought I loved, the ones I might have loved and the ones who loved me. That uncertainty of a possibility never pursued, a connection never made but for a little more effort on either side. I wonder if he thinks about me as much as I think about him. I wonder if he thinks about me at all. And I think about where I am now. There are other possibilities - some real, some imagined. Some as unlikely to come to fruition as the sun is to orbit the moon. Some ... maybe ... possible after all. And many more likely to result in more failure, more rejection and more regret. It's not the uncertainty that keeps me paralyzed but more the knowledge, the absolute certainty, that the doors I attempt will be closed to me even though I know that I could succeed if allowed through.