unwritten

There's a difference between what was and what could've been.  There's an awful lot of one, but an infinity of the other.

That's what the Doctor said in last night's episode of Doctor Who (The Rings Of Akhaten).  Yes, it does seem that often times we tend to define ourselves by our history and our memories, but the other half, and maybe greater half, of who we are are the hopes and dreams, some lost and unfulfilled and some still remain as flickers in that bottomless pit.  That imagined life both haunts me and propels me.  History is done, but what about the stories that I didn't write but could have and the stories that I could still write?

I always wonder what if I knew the right things to say or the right things to do so that the future that I wanted didn't just hang up and give up on me for good.  I am not so sure that I could ever recapture those same feelings I once had about another human being and about life, on that boat, in the golden late afternoon light, with the water glistening and the curtain in our cabin dancing flippantly to the breeze.  All the magic was really not entirely about what was happening but what was going to happen for a lifetime to come.  But alas the lifetime was never a lifetime. It was just a moment.

But my dreams were endless, infinite.  Enough to feed a parasitic monster til it could feed no more and spontaneously combust.  Then we turn back to the blank page and realize every unwritten word was still there.