Inevitability

Am I ruined forever? Or is it merely a matter of time and healing?  

I try and assure myself of the latter, but my efforts are vain thus far. My conscience battles what I want to believe, doubting every optimistic outlook I come up with as I reflect back on all the turmoil I have stumbled through to get to where I am.

Will it ever make sense? When will the puzzle finally piece itself together? Does it for everyone or just some fortunate few? What about the rest of us unlucky stragglers left behind in the darkened clouds of uncertainty and void, of trial upon trial, error upon error? What is our fate?  

As the cliche saying goes, everything happens for a reason. But what proof lies behind that statement? We are tempted to over-analyze the thought and assume each mistake we make leads us to our next test, and each time we pass or fail we consequently turn down a different path than the one previously inhabited. What if our lives are spent failing miserably? Will we ever know peace? Must we always be followed by the shadows of the choices we've made in the past? Will we always be haunted by what could have been?    

The answers, the so-called "right" choices are never written in stone. Thus we are forced to make our own decisions, but based on what? Gut? Instinct? Faith? The advice of others? Wisdom, or lack thereof? So, with that being said, how can those who make the "wrong" choices without any guidance otherwise really be at fault? We must choose our own path, based on whatever knowledge we possess, or simply submit and let others choose our paths for us, am I correct? Some of us will act out of selfishness, wanting to set our own rules, act and speak without regard to consequences, and live our lives the only way we know how. The problem is, most of the time we haven't the slightest clue of what life has in store for us.  

But how can we be blamed for the repercussions of our decisions? They were ours to make, our paths were fresh and new. No one wants to be a drone, following the same footsteps as countless others before them. I know I don't. But in my naivety, my own selfishness I thought I knew what I wanted, what was right, and that I was living my life the way I was meant to. Yet somewhere along my search for independence and adventure, something went terribly awry. I inadvertently started basing my decisions off of what others around me were doing; not because wanted to "fit in" with any certain crowd, but because I thought everyone else was happy. I was not. I had always felt abnormal and outcast, so eventually I surmised that everyone existing around me had something I didn't. Some peace of mind, perhaps. Everyone seemed so weightless and carefree, and all I wanted was to jump right in and soak up the sun's rays right along with them. Little did I know then that appearances are what they are, and nothing more. I was stumbling around blindfolded, desperate to rest my feet on what I thought was solid ground.

I dug myself a hole. I kept digging and digging, deeper deeper down, faster and harder until my world was spinning so fast I had not a clue as to how to stop it, or how I let it get that far. Before I knew it I was stuck; more lost and confused than ever before. I dug myself so deep inside that gaping, black hole that whatever shred of light still remained at that point began to wither away completely. I lost all hope of regaining my grasp of some sort of truth, so that I might find a way back out, back to where things made sense again.

When I finally realized what I was putting myself through, I felt so helpless and angry. Nothing made sense anymore. Then again, things have never really made sense to me, not since I was a little girl. And only then did things make sense in the context of how children think and justify things in their naivety, in their juvenile happiness, thinking "the world is a beautiful, wonderful place with so many adventures to be sought, places to travel, people to meet". And love, made out to be some fairytale dream that we fall into; we believed with our quintessential pre-developed minds that there is only one person for us, a soul mate, and that we'll know them when we see them, and some minuscule little struggle will inevitably bring us together, and we'll all live "happily ever after"..

Well, where is my happily ever after?  I sit, wasting away, and wait.. and wait.. for what my heart knows will never come.