Guards

The palace guards have arrived. Can I get a magic lamp now?

'Cause, you know, I know that I've been wrong. But I also know that I had to make a mistake, otherwise I wouldn't have known what was right. People do this all the time- they plan careers and set their futures down the paths they think are right only to realize they were wrong. They come back to the places they've been and smile, knowing that despite their misstep, they're back to where they're meant to be. The only problem is, I can't pass the next three weeks of my life in a TV montage. And I know it's just three weeks, but how do people live with regret for even that short amount of time? This is something new to me, and I want a magical out.

I've been mostly apathetic, I guess, towards my life. All choices were equally good, so the task at hand was to pick a path and walk it. Take whatever factors into account that you'd like, but I picked my path and set off. I watched it change and I changed my mind, but I wasn't sure. You know, you need to be sure for these things. So I picked a back up and took a new road and I was wrong. And now I know it.

Now I know that I want things. There are things that I can do without in the world and there are things that I need desperately. I feel quite the adult- I've worked in a job I don't like with people who have occasionally frustrated me, I have been mistaken, I have misspoken, I have been reprimanded, I have been ashamed, I have stumbled in places I thought were solid and I have fallen without getting up for entirely too long. I have misjudged a situation and shown too little interest and affection and for that I have been sorry, I am sorry. More than ever before, I want the chance to do it all over again, to pick something different, to choose to be another person, to listen, to be confident in what I've heard, to walk a better road, to trust and not to wonder, not to wander.

Regret is new, but I guess it's good, because it means that I cared. I miss the color the world had for a few weeks and I want it back. At the same time, I'm glad the story I had planned out is someone's story, even though it's not mine. I'll wait with this interminable patience I seem to have acquired, I won't be sad for what might have been and I'll let hope replace regret. Disappointment isn't new- it's something I'm quite familiar with, especially if it applies to myself. It's so easy to be disappointed with me, to blame myself for anything that's gone wrong. Because, if I blame myself, I don't have to blame anyone else. Then there's only one bad person in my world and I have control over her. If it's my fault, I can fix it, I'm still in charge, I can do better next time, I can carry this blame and I can solve this problem and I never have to depend on someone else for the happiness I want. And I know that's not right and I know there's no way this will make anything better, so, oddly, I'll let trust replace disappointment, because I know that people deserve it. Frustration is my perpetual friend and I'm not sure of how to deal with it. Courage to change the things I can and grace to accept the things I cannot, I guess. I guess, I guess, I guess. I felt so sure of everything…

You know, there's two kinds of rain. There's the perfect cleaning rain like you can get in the summer when it's warm outside and the only correct response is to dance in it, jumping in the puddles that gather and spinning to the beat of the drops on leaves. Then there's this cold disgusting rain that soaks your clothes and weighs you down and requires you to use all the warmth that protection and food and friendship can give you just to be normal again. The thing is, though, it's all the same stuff falling from the sky, bringing the same water to the growing things. It's just a matter of when it happens that makes all the difference.

God, I could have used summer rain.