Reflections

I have been thinking so much about the past lately, as I have been trying to compile these stories. There is a lot of shit here to sift through. I am thirty-five, and I have a long and checkered past. I have lived lots of places, and I have been lots of things. I am reminded as I look through my past from these glasses I wear in the present of the interesting journey of life. I am aware now, for maybe the first time...just how different I am now.
Looking back, I realize how many different things I have been at different points in my life. I have been an addict, a wife, a friend, a dancer, a waitress, a cook, a stoner, a drunk, a student, an artist, a mother, a daughter, a writer, a storyteller, a mute, a bitch, a sweetheart, a selfish shithead, a bum...a person. I have changed so many times in the past twenty years, that I am barely recognizable to that teenager I once was. I am very different than I was ten years ago, and still even different than I was five years ago. A year ago, just weeks before my son was born...I was different yet.
My son has changed my life in ways I never even imagined. My entire viewpoint has shifted. Things that never made sense before come into focus. Mistakes of the past suddenly seem they can be fixed...the window of opportunity presents itself. And I know that window was always there, but I just haven't always been able to look through it. The birth of my son forced me to take a look, finally.
Getting back in touch with old friends, from high school, college, before and after, and all over the country has made me consider the many different faces I have had. I think back on all the things I have done, and seen, and known. I think back on how each and every one has changed me...altered my landscape forever.
I try not to think all the what ifs...there is no point in all that. What is done is done; what is past is past, and all we can do is move on blazing toward the future. What I do think about, is how I am a different person today than I was at so many other stations in the past. I try not to have regrets. What may have been is not, and that is just the way it is. All we can do is move forward.
Life is a journey, and I have travelled millions of miles. I have strayed so far away from home, and I always come home again. I have seen so many things, and been involved in more than anyone will ever know. I have had various faces, and various goals, and various desires. I have been lots of things to some, and nothing to others. I have been high, and I have been low. And I am here to tell the story of my life, which keeps changing everyday. It is an adventure. It is a blessing.