“There is a lesson here,” my brain states as it wanders through memory once more. There must be as many times as I have unwillingly revisited this moment or that one. When my mind wanders, it flits from there to there… often back to a moment that beckons regret. 

Sometimes there is a new angle that becomes illuminated by the light of my mind, but mainly I do my best to quiet what cannot be undone. I cannot find my feet there again. I cannot unwalk a path I wore down with worry from before. I cannot exist then, more knowledgeable, capable, or wiser. I can only look back, standing here now, with feelings both complex and simple. I know this, but it doesn’t matter to my mind. 

“Stop.” My inner voice shouts at the rest of what is me here now. This does us no good. It cannot help. The past has been made whether it was woven by wise old hands or tripped upon by dazed and ungraceful feet. The past was written whether in flourished caligraphy, or scrawled and illegible crayon against the wall that stood it up. 

I am here, in this now, and still I cannot help it when the pain creeps forward. The pain of relationships sunk. The pain of wishes dashed. The pain of would have beens or could have beens that never were. Here I stand, washing dishes and flinging memory off like a dog shaking off mud. Specks of past toss against my present and stain this second. This now, and then entertwined. I cannot shake some of the me that misstepped or mistook, or mismade the woman here. Would I change those choices that brought me to be this person, I mean, would I really? What would happen if she was undone, one bad decision at a time? One realization after another? One “if only” more? 

Perhaps I cling because there is something I am not yet ready to let go of, or that I have not quite learned the lesson from. Maybe, to learn the lesson means to make myself someone more. Or, I am stuck here because of fear- pain – – or punishment. And getting rid of these moments would mean something of me would be destroyed. 

All I can do is know this now and accept what has been. Because we are an eternal now, no future, no past- only standing here- forever.