I realize I've now gone past the point where I wonder at and imagine the ways this could've been different. Fantasize about different choices. It's a hugely compelling endeavor, and I wonder often if it's a sign of growing up and letting go, or finding yourself too weighed down. Arriving at the point where you either let go of what you're holding on to the tightest, or accept that you must stop here.
Except.
You can not stop here. In the darkness and the unknowing.
This is nowhere. The reason we built inns is for travelers to know where and when they can afford to halt in their journey. Stop out here in the dark, you've got no way of knowing if you've stopped in the heart of the woods or its guts. If you'll wake up devoured in the morning.
You must let the questions go now. Where would this other road, now foreign to you for always, have led? Could I have been happy here, and happier even than I am now? Was that my exit and did I miss it?
There's always gonna be exits you missed. So they tell you to let them go, but not about the boulder of sorrow you trade the questioning for. That letting go will bring a sort of freedom from incessant wondering, from wishing things had turned out so different. That it will go from stinging to dull and ever-there. The reality of what did not happen.
I think you would've loved the playing with the dogs. The freedom of running through the garden. But instead, I will sit here and never know.
anche se non fosse gestibile
e anche se io fossi troppo fragile
proverei ogni strada che c’è
pur di tornare da te.
E ci provo sempre, in storie e sogni, ma non vivo più nella tua città.
I've been listening to this wonderful woman a lot, grazie a Google, ever since I stumbled across her fantastic duet with Sting. She really has one hell of a voice, doesn't she? I could listen to her all day.
I was first introduced to this guy a few years back and fell in love with his voice on the spot, the subtle French accent, the gravelly bawl-your-eyes-out hopefulness of how he sings. It's really something apart, and I find my heart always goes quiet and calm when I listen to him. I'm glad he's still going.
But I suppose you can only sit and dwell for so long, and in the end, I'm reminded I'm in this reality now. So I put on a song like this one, kick back, and find some aspect of my reality that's worth enjoying. And there's oh so many of them.
I realize I've been much too happy and ridiculously lucky in so much of this life.
By dint of what I do, I get to ask more than I rightfully should. By dint of it being today, I get to ask. But tomorrow comes and grounds me in this road I am on, and it's not a bad road. Ultimately, fortunately, it did not turn out to be a bad life.
Which isn't to say I don't miss you terribly. Frightfully.
I think, perhaps, the art of being human is living sometimes in this betweeness of grief and joy. The sorrow of what should've happened but didn't and what thank goodness did.
I know I promised happier songs for this week's #threetunetuesday, but I did not factor in what it meant or how easily sorrow seeps in once you hold the door open. Maybe next time. Until then, in the betweeness. Thank you, @ablaze.
