Thoughts

I was on a plane last week, and I sat next to a lady who was clearly the arm of God reaching out to me.  We talked for a while about God and spiritual things, and I could hear God's voice telling me that He wasn't done with me yet.  'You think you're done, and you have no more left in you; you think your life is over.  But I say, I will finish the work I have started in you.'  That's what I heard Him say, in the after-silence of that conversation.

It gets me to thinking about how one event can change everything in someone's life - for better or worse.  One April night, almost seven years ago now, I met a man who would cause me five years worth of heartbreak, pain, anger, frustration, disappointment, bitterness... well, you get the point.  If I had never gone to that recital...

The point is not the regret itself, but the impact of one, singular event.  Chance meetings become relationships, which lead to happiness or regret; and one day, they become history, and we must deal with the consequences either way.

Sadly, it is not possible to live a life without regret.  Mistakes cannot be avoided.  We take chances in order to find love; and sometimes, we find only pain, instead.  But sometimes, when we are out of hope - but only rarely, because life isn't like a movie, where someone always comes along just when the pain begins - something happens to lift us out of the fog we've fallen under.  I don't know how long I've been in darkness; sometimes it seems like my whole life.

I don't know the plans God has for me.  He isn't required to write me a love story of any eloquence, or bring along a man who would be as romantic and determined as I am.  My heart is not healed.  I'm not ready to get back on the horse, so to speak, when it comes to love; maybe by the time I am, it will be too late.  I'm already twenty-five; and this society has a way of making me feel like an old maid.  By now, many of 'the good guys' are taken (and happily taken) by women who decided they wanted a family instead of a career.  I live in the darkness of my regrets because I live a life of duty and obligation, when all I want is to live as a young person - full of impulse, ready to take on the world and explore all of its wonders... before I get too old.  Time is passing, and all I do is the work required of me; I'm so tired... and because I feel so tired, I feel even more old.  Young people don't resign themselves to fate; they make fate their own.

So what do I really want?  I want to walk away from everything I've worked so hard to gain.  I want to be married, and married happily; I want to be in love for the rest of my life.  I want to play the violin the way I want, and not have anyone dictate to me week after week every way I am not doing it right.  I want to live somewhere where winter temperatures average about 50 degrees as a high, and drive my car with the top down in January just for the hell of it.  Screw insurance benefits - I never get sick, anyway; I want to freelance, make my own schedule, and sleep in until 10 am every single day.  (Well, Almost every single day...)  I want a simple life - a house in the country, some cats outside on the porch, and lots of people around who genuinely care about me.  I don't want to disappear into the background of some orchestra's vast numbers, or have a career that makes more money than the difference it makes in the lives of others.  

I'm tired of learning what other people tell me to learn.  I want to learn on my own terms.  This last year is by far the hardest.  I can see the end... and it can't come fast enough.