Awakening

There comes a point where you realize what your life has become. Where the dreams and illusions of what you once dreamed of fade, as they should, to expose the reality of who and what you are. And where you are.

When all the deeds of others and of your own converge to bring you to this point.

Having been the victim of horrendous and painful things, and having done wrong to others during my life.

The future now is blurred through the tears I cry for myself, and for those things lost. For those I have hurt. For the hurt I have endured.

This life is so intensely painful. So overwhelming hurtful.

I reach up and out and try to find the good. The peaceful. The noble. The best in me.

I cherish my friends. While I mourn the losses.

In this life, I have been told I was never good enough.

Good enough.

And what I have learned is that none of us are.

Not good enough.

Not what we could be.

Not what we might have been.

To look back now and see the mistakes. The misguided choices. The lack of understanding.

The failings.

Not just of others, but of ourselves.

Then we look to the future, because to gaze on the past serves only to keep us there.

But it is a wistful hope.

We look to the future, as if there is redemption, healing and forgiveness there.

And all too often what we find there is that it simply more of the same. That no matter what we do, we may never be good enough.

As I grow older, there is far less ahead than behind.

So, my perception of unlimited possibilities is constrained by the limits of my human existence.

I am 52 years old.

As I continue to age, the time left becomes smaller and smaller.

The opportunity to reclaim a life. To acquit myself. To find peace.

Diminishes every day.

I will wake tomorrow before the sun to go visit a good friend, and to share the wonder of the birds and of nature.

It is my refuge.

I may never find the answers. I may never know that life I once dreamed of.

But I will find peace, if only for moments in time.

For one thing that life has taught me.

Cherish the moment. For we may never pass this way again.