I woke up with the strangest feeling that I had spent the night digging through wet sand. The idea must have sprouted during the night and by the time I was in the shower it had produced provocative fruit.
The FedEx guy must’ve forgotten to put a slip in my mailbox because it turned out that I had had a package waiting for me in the office for the last two weeks. I claimed it on Thursday and knew what it contained. My (only) two photo albums that I had left at my old apartment in Santa Monica. My ex had sent them back to me, either as an excuse to start talking to me again (which has been semi-successful) or as a way to get my address so she can mail me an anthrax envelope.
I don’t know that I’ve ever owned a camera. I like pictures. I see the merit in taking them and putting them in albums. But I rarely take any. The two albums contain pretty much every picture I’ve ever personally taken along with a few other keepers. Besides the dozen framed photographs I have scattered in my apartment, they house every picture I own. I am grateful to have recovered them.
I flipped through the books last night before I fell asleep and was surprised how emotionally loaded they were. There are the obligatory college beerbong photos and high school prom pictures but there are also pictures of my grandparents, now gone, and ex girlfriends, also gone but still very much alive.
I have no regrets. I’ve done a lot of silly things. Stupid things. Insensitive things. But, in the end, I am confident they have made me smarter and more compassionate. It’s how it works. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction – it’s called learning. But sometimes when I look through old photographs, I forget all of that and ask myself why – why did I do that? Why did I sabotage myself?
There is, of course no answer. A very happy (very drunk, probably) me stares back at myself, blithe to the truth that the girl around my arm is possibly my most perfect match I’d ever know. In some ways, I’ve never quite gotten over her – I don’t think I’ve wanted to, as silly as that sounds. As a clarifier, this is not the ex that sent me the albums, but the previous one. I know, confusing.
What better way to fall directly to sleep than to repeatedly cut yourself with the razor sharp edge of Regret.
I awoke with the image/story/idea of me on the beach, digging. I knew it was the beach because I could feel the grit of the wet sand between my fingers and in my nails. I was steadily and confidently digging directly below me. There was no other choice. My hands several feet below the ground, I hit something. Not hard like wood but soft like flesh. It was my legs. I had been unearthing myself.
It’s not the most original thought, but it felt real and it comforted me.
Sometimes we help ourselves without knowing we do. Or we receive special insight from somewhere. I don’t know, I don’t understand it. But what better metaphor than life being a slow uncovering of one’s self. You don’t understand or find yourself until you do, through long, sometimes laborious digging.
Regardless of whether you live your life with regrets or not, no matter where you go, there you are.
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