Ghosts Of Years Gone By

I've come to this point in my life where I find myself looking back on my life more and more with each passing day. That point on the proverbial mountain we are all climbing, far short of the peak and yet so far from the ground, when we take a break and look back behind us on how high we've climbed. Some of us may look back on that rambling trail which leads us to this point and regret walking it. Others may see happy times filled with friends and family. I look back and see what's gone. 

Every decision we make, every second, leading directly to this one specific place and time. If anything was different, my current reality might be radically different from the one I am living. A sentence said, or not said, could have an everlasting impact on our lives and I grow so very sad thinking of all the small things that have passed in my life, because they're not small at all. Like a bridge with so much water flowing beneath it, I can feel the toll of time taking its' price on me already. The people I have met and lost, the friendships and the loves. The places I miss and the memories I may have forgotten.

These things which have shaped me, and yet I am so high I have forgotten their touch. I feel alone sometimes, on this mountain, and looking back on everything I've left behind only intensifies this feeling inside me. On my mind lately has been my friend who committed suicide last year. Did she too look back on her life before she did it? Did she stop too on that mountainside and decide the peak was too far and the weight of her past was too great to continue?

What will really matter when we reach the top of that mountain? What will that trail behind my back whisper to me? So I sit, looking deep into it, reliving the past to hold onto what's dear. What's shaped me this far. When I sit back down in ten or twenty years, I wonder what that trail will say. Whatever it chooses, I hope I know, so I won't look back and regret.