If it goes to hell, oh well...

I've come to realize that I probably won't be that many things in this lifetime of mine. I won't be father, I won't be a husband, I won't be famous, or someone of particular note. I won't be rich or influential. I won't win awards or be mentioned in the notebooks of history. I won't even be remembered as a particularly good friend - at least based on how many I left slip through my fingers in all these years. But despite what I will never be, perhaps there are some things I still might. The coolest uncle, a partner that never leaves, an invisible influence on the world around me, a brother that always listens, a son that tries to understand, a friend that is there, even when the whole world goes quiet.

Hang me out to dry...

I'd rather die than let it go...

Still the dream persists, suppressed but always there, that somehow by some miraculous effort of the heart what was done could be undone. What form would such atonement take that would turn back time and bring the him back to life? 

Recently, I've been spending much of my time thinking about regret. Regret and its accompanying conviction that there is a perfect, placid life, my own alternate existence, pristine and simple, existing in a neighboring reality in which certain turns in the road were never set upon. A world where I made different choices and crossed paths with different people. A world I know doesn't exist and isn't true. I know that. I had learned it. But it is an irresistible fantasy, if only because it implies I have some control over my fate.