Reflections

My thoughts swirl around, triggered by sights and sounds. There are some thoughts that remain, hanging in the air like smoke without movement, and they linger, recalling past exploits. Often, lately I find myself staring at the image of my younger self, retracing the footsteps of my ghost, trying to find that something, that ineffable thing that was lost.

Was it our innocence?

So small, so still, marred beyond recognition

Was the death of self the death of dreams?

Those nightly visions that capture and hold sway as we rest our eyes in repose

Was it our youth?

Young and flexible, molded and formed, tainted and corrupted, torn and destroyed

Was it our capacity for love?

Have we spent the bounty of our largess with none to restore, lost in translation

Was it our missing passion?

All is as gray as a sky downcast and brooding, pregnant with storming fury, a promise of the coming

Was it our faith in humanity?

Shackled torn down, prisoners of a foreign land, soulless teeth gnashing, they tear and bite

Was it our hope?

Hopelessness replacing tenacity, fear with apathy, vision clouded occluded

What has become of who we are and how is it that we are not the summation of our experiences? We are not where we came from, and yet there are flavors of it found in our entirety. We are not when we were and are, though there again, we retain a hint of it. We are not who we come from, although genetics really are a bitch. We are not even who we think ourselves to be, rather we are the summation of who He says we are.

We each retain trace amounts of our shared life experiences, and those experiences are what shape and mold us into who we are becoming. None of us lives to him or herself. We are each members of one another. A thing done in a distant land will be felt by the smallest of insects here in our lives. Interconnectedness is a truth we must accept to begin to see the tapestry of our completed journey since we cannot see ourselves after we depart. Reflect and redirect, or course correct.