Path Not Taken, Road Not Traveled, Heart Still Broken

Different decisions sent me down different paths than my friends and lovers. Some of them were right, some wrong, and some weren't even my decisions at all. It's only when I look back and can see the way the paths overlap, looping back and forth, connecting and weaving that I understand how Fate has a hand in things, and that I have no control over it. It still hurts like hell.

The past has a way of coming back to haunt me when I least expect it. A breath-stealing slap in the in the face to show me things thought I'd put away. I only thought I'd forgot but no, it's been waiting for just this perfect moment to come roaring back with the vengence of a lover scorned.

Events, people, places, things once beloved, were shoved into the back of my mind busy with the present, a heart full to the brim with the new. Mental keepsakes were safely pressed and folded and filed, but they lingered, like a cancer I thought were in remission. In reality, it was just waiting, for that one word, or name, or thought, or smell, or dear God, a song and just exploded into life. These cells, these visions regenerated with vivid clarity and I was simply....there again, like I'd never left at all.

The past is a scary thing, because I can't change it. Instead, it just lingers in the darkness like a chain tightening around the heart showing what could have been. However, when the past dies, ends, becomes a closed avenue, something strange happens. I freeze and wonder in that selfish, center of the universe way humans have, could I have done something to change it? Here is where the F-word comes in again, Fate. If I could go back, knowing what I know now, would I change any of my decisions, sure, should I? No, but I do know that a dear friend is gone, and this world a much dimmer place without him in it. I'll miss you, Perry.

Love always,

Jenn