woulda, shoulda, coulda...

Life never stops living.

No matter what a person has going on, or not going on, life still happens.  It's pretty nondiscriminatory that way.  I'm not sure if that is supposed to make a person feel better or worse, but it just is.  "It is what it is," as my brother would say.

In my near 10-month hiatus from writing, a lot has happened.  Doesn't it always?  I'm sure you're not surprised.  A lot of life can happen in 10 months.  So what's got me wanting to start writing again?  Well, for one thing, my want to write has never stopped.  I just couldn't find the words; they were stalled within me, choked deep down by a mental block so thick it took a jarring dream to release it.  I was just telling McG the other day that I never remember my dreams.  Did I jinx myself?  I wonder that I did, because only three nights later I have a dream that will stay with me for a very, very long time.

I'm going to back this up a bit by explaining something about myself that many probably don't know.  While I may be wittier these days in my life as I get older, I am usually the type of person that will think of a come-back hours after it was needed.  And the same idea goes for the "woulda-shoulda" conversations with the people in my life.  There were many times when I should have said things to people I care about, but didn't because I am also of a split mind that people get to make and live by their decisions and actions.  And who am I to disagree with what they feel is best for them?

One of those "woulda-shoulda" conversations, I am now convinced, could have changed my life and the life of one of the most important people to me.  He was making a huge mistake; we all knew it, but I just couldn't say a thing to contradict his current path.  I know I can't take all the blame; none of us said a thing to him.  And then there is the fact that it was ultimately his decision to make, right or wrong.

That "woulda-shoulda" conversation is what came back to haunt me last night in my dream.  It is truly one of the few things I regret in my life.  There aren't many things I regret, but this conversation that never happened is one of them.  I'm not sure what triggered this dream, and I'm not really sure it matters.  But the ache and anguish I felt when I woke up was enough to break through the writers block.  The dream itself was a happy one; one filled with love and joy, laughter, family and friends.  But it was a false-hood; a possibility of what an aspect of life could have been on a different path if that conversation had happened.  So the ache and anguish I felt when I woke up was from the emptiness of not having what the dream had shown me.  It has me thinking if there is a way to go back, how would I have started that conversations?