What You Could Have Been
What was it? There was a thought crossing my mind...hmm.
Somewhere else?, a different location?, a distant dream?, lost opportunity?,
something I can't quite put my finger on—ah!
I wonder if I could have been more than I am.
What am I?
I've been working on that for a long time.
Too long.
You sort of give up after awhile, but not really, it haunts you.
If—yes, that word—IF I had only—
played my cards right,
not lost my temper,
not had such awful timing,
not felt I needed to say something funny,
or off the wall,
to mess with things as they were,
to tempt fate,
or act the fool,
or give up when I should have hung in,
or hung in when I should have...
or if, if, if, I had just called sooner,
or waited longer,
or—fuck it! This gets you nowhere.
Because the one, one, one thing, the most important thing,
the thing that we all miss,
or don't see until far into the game, so far, you wonder if it could possible make any difference,
but it does, because it is the real point, the real thing we all need to find.
Not what could you have become, but what HAVE you become?
That is the real deal.
We all, all of us, have become what we are by playing the hand we were dealt.
It's like a poker, you can play the odds smart and safe and still lose it all, or,
you could take an outrageous risk against the odds, bet it all, when you should fold, and win the pot.
You can't know.
The rules are there to follow or to break,
and it all comes down to when you follow or break 'em.
And there is no way for you to know when it's the right time to do what.
So as much as you think it is you making or breaking your luck there are other forces in play.
Take stock in yourself and situation and with the clearest eyes you can muster see where it all led to.
See where you really are and what.
You maybe so much better off than you know, or worse than you think.
You have become yourself in the end after all the experimenting, all the trials, and fresh starts,
you have become you.
Welcome back traveler, welcome home.
