When formulating the premise for this post I originally thought to call it Cycles but then I thought shit, I’ve already written a blog of that name! I wrote it June last year…and doesn’t that just prove a point succinctly.
Then I came up with “Phases.” Yeah, we go through phases in our thoughts, our preferences, and often the choices we make in life are down to whether or not we believe something is permanent or if it is ‘just a phase.’ I agreed with myself on that theme then promptly forgot about it for a good week or two.
“Phases” wasn’t my best idea. Unless I’m referring to the Buffy episode of the same name (which by association would automatically make it AWESOME!) it’s all a bit wishy-washy and unless I’m writing a blog with the theme of society’s shallowness and falseness in mind – which I am not at this point in time – it doesn’t really work.
Anyway, if I was gonna write about that I’d call it “Just a slice of reality…” and that was last month.
Oh wait, I’ve done that too? Last may? SHIT man this cycle stuff is deep!
So I’m pondering why I all of a sudden don’t like “Phases” (This implies I actually spent a long time thinking about it. I didn’t) and then it dawns on me: the cycles aren’t about phases, they’re about these events in our lives that change us, in turn changing the circumstances with which we deal with the next circumstances, affecting anyone else affected by them or us, thus creating the path along which this turning wheel rolls. A path dictated both by our decisions in that moment, and what we have learnt from those decisions in our past.
It’s only when we hit the crossroads the wheel stops. And then it’s up to us. Either to roll down the path we wish to follow or be pushed against our will by someone else at the same crossroads as us whose decision affects ours.
Oh, there’s that cycle again.
Now I’m someone who believes it’s never too late. (Not for everything mind. You shoot someone in the face then regret it, that’s too late. My advice? Never shoot someone in the face. It ain’t worth it.)
In my life and the way I live it I like to feel like there’s a possibility we could get a second chance; that sooner or later the wheel will turn on us again and we’ll see that glimmering sparkle we missed out on last time.
I – genteel readers – am naive.
What would be far more useful would be to look not for that same old missed train, but for the new opening that may arise out of the next turn of the wheel. That’s harder than it sounds, because every time you see that wheel turning round all you can think of is how it turned last time, and how much you wish it could turn like that again. Turn back the clock. Roll you into the state you wish you were in the first place.
Ok so I think I might have used that wheel metaphor to death.
But put it this way. Every time I think about that post “Cycles” I wrote last year, I don’t think of what it could mean for me in the future, I think about the circumstances I wrote it in last year.
It’s a shame because I think it holds a lot of wisdom in it IF I ACTUALLY LISTENED TO MYSELF, but I know exactly what was going on in my mind at that precise moment and for some reason, although I know what I was feeling was very sad and lonely, part of me wants to be there again. Not so I could relive all that crap, but so I could grab hold of that glimmering sparkle I didn’t manage last time and figure out how this time I could make it right.
That.Is.Dangerous. Regret and uncertainty are the bitchiest of bitches.
Things happen for a reason and I guess for better or worse they happen when they do for the precise same reason. If that reason is to learn and grow then great. It it’s to be happy then even better. If it’s to hurt – then I guess that’ll have to do too. Maybe then I can grow and learn from the pain. So it won’t happen again.
But if you’re always thinking about the cycle and never the eventuality you’ve got nowhere to go.
If I’m always thinking of ten years ahead and what might happen if I do this or do that then I won’t be able to move on now. And that’ll sure as hell make ten years from now a hell of a lot harder!
Bloody hell, how did I get here!? This wasn’t at all where I was going to go.
But things happened while I was writing that opened up new thoughts and they brought me here. They happened for a reason. Due to the tiny butterfly effects of the last 10 minutes I changed what was originally a fairly well-structured thought into a new thread of thoughtfulness.
I broke the cycle.
And if I can learn to do that in everyday life then I can begin to move forward. Not round in circles. I need a way out of the cycle. And that’s up to me.
There’s a song I fell in love with exactly a year ago that now makes me sad because it reminds me of something in the cycle I lost. Ironically Newton Faulkner went to ACM a few years before me. Extra-Ironically there are other connections within the cycle that make me relate it back even more. But my life is my life.
I want to reclaim that now.
I want it back for me.
Holly xxx
PS – The title? Nothing to do with anything I’ve just written down. But I Googled “What is the opposite of a cycle” and Google had a tough time. Someone on a site came up with “Line/moment/chaos” all of which were connected but not right. Because I’m not sure I believe in true chaos. Or if I do I guess I believe in the kinda chaos that has an order. So I wrote “Chaos line” – but I typo’d it. And that gave me “Chaos lie.”
And that little bit of randomness, that little mistake – came up with the well-planned title to this well-planned chaotic post about cycles and the order of the word…
Go figure.
