Haunted By My Past
I wasn’t even 18 when I graduated high school, my birthday falling in the summer after that day. On that day, though, I was already making decisions that would dictate the direction of my life. Circumstances at home had forced my hand, guilting me into choosing the path that was expected instead of following the dreams I’d long had. I turned down offers no one knew I had in order to be the dutiful son and stick around to help take care of the crisis family had fallen into.
So, I spent the next eight years doing just that. While my mother was on dialysis, in and out of the hospital, and slowly dying, I stopped living to help take care of her. Oh, I attempted to go to the nearby college, I had jobs that meant nothing to me, and I made friends here and there. At the end of each day, I was expected to put all those things on the backburner when I was needed. If my phone rang and I didn’t answer, I was being disrespectful. If I was needed at a certain time, class be damned. If I had money saved up, it was fair game to everyone.
Needless to say, my first advice today to anyone ready to take a leap into chasing their dreams is to jump off that cliff and dive in. Don’t let family, illness, or the expectations of anyone else dictate your life. You might be at peace in the moment, but there will come a day when those sacrifices will burn like acid in your soul as you look back with regret over your life. You’ll love more than anyone will return and one day you’ll find yourself unable to love anything ever again.
That’s where I am today. That’s who I am today. Decisions I made, trying to do what was right, have led me to realize that all the while I was caring for others, I never took the time to find out who and what I am. I never took the time to chase my own dreams or make my life something I can look back on and be proud of.
Deep Ruts
Honestly, I might not be so bitter about that one period of time in my life if it wasn’t for the cycle of my life before then and since. I grew up learning from a mom who cared for her dying mother for years, bending to the will of everyone else too busy living their own lives to realize that bending was causing more damage than anyone could see.
And since her death, I’ve fallen into the same never-ending cycle of caring because I didn’t realize in those months immediately after her death that I even had a choice to do anything else. I didn’t realize back then that what I longed for, what I needed most was to discover who I am and what I long to become. What I’ve learned only in hindsight now is that I only had the breath of a choice to change the course of my life before the ruts got so deep I won’t be able to find a new way without upsetting the entire wagon that holds my life together.
Now this path carries the weight of marriage, children, upended careers, and, if I’m honest, so much regret the axels that keep this train going can only be in one piece by the grace of God. Sometimes I wonder if upending the wagon, pulling myself out of the ruts and dumping some of the weight that’s been piled on over the years wouldn’t be the easier path.
Sometimes, I wonder how different life would be had I taken another road back then. Would I be happier? Would I feel less like a failure? Would I understand the depths of that decision as much as I do in this timeline?
Not So 20/20 Afterall
That is the conundrum of it all. Oh in our minds that grass on that other side is lush and green and filled with hope and love, but does our dreams paint reality without filters? Is what could have been as fake as a TicTok star’s perfect complection? Would I long for the pain and depression I have today after a week on that other road?
We claim hindsight is 20/20, but what if it’s merely corrected by the ideology of something better? That perfect fantasy is merely there to tempt fate and make us want to throw away a lifetime of work, blood, tears, and laughter for a maybe.
After all, could you really trade a maybe for the love of your daughter? Would you give up hijinks with our son for a fake hope of being recognized on a New York corner in August?
Finding Yourself In Spite of It All
The answer is no. Most of us wouldn’t give up the things we know could have only come from the choices made in this timeline. A child, a home, a group of friends you wouldn’t give up if it saved you from a slow agonizing death by cancer.
That doesn’t mean we are stuck trudging through the mud and muck at the bottom of those deep ruts we feel into long ago. We can still reexamine out desires. We can still listen to our dreams. We can still reinvent ourselves into something, someone who we can leave this world one day being proud of who and what we became.
It won’t be easy. We won’t come through the transformation without bruises and scars. If we are cautious, though, we might find that those bruises and scars only come from shedding the necessary weight that’s holding us from the potential hiding in the darkness we seek to leave behind.
J.Rhett Lively 