Regarding my anatomy I fall in to the category of being a "Right-Brain Thinker." In all aspects of my cognitive development that began before my fetal self decided on my gender, my genes and chromosomes had determined that I would be the sort of thinker and learner that is creative in language, writing, random thought, abstract views, and subjectivity. When you really think about it, and have Human Development, Psychology, and Family Studies text books surrounding you, it's funny how the way we do things and who we are isn't just by some random chance or coincidental occurrence. We are who we are because of a lot of things. Yeah, my DNA holds in every little cell in my body the blueprint for my dark brown eyes and dirty blonde hair. My DNA gave me thick eyebrows, pouty lips, chicken legs, and oddly curvy feet. A handsome father and a beautiful mother.
I'm more than thick dirty blonde hair and skinny little legs. It's the life-span, the whole concoction of family, friends, culture, environment, experiences, and morality. These things make us who we truly are.
In my life, I find myself wishing that some of my relationships, with friends or family or boyfriends, were different or that I would have handled certain life experiences in a different way. It's a mind-teasing thing to sit in deep thought at what might have played out differently if things would have been done in another way. The stillness of such deep thought can send you into painful regret or grateful relief. It spins you in circles until you can't bear the thought anymore and sometimes it just stands still in a flood of nostalgia. Whichever way you look at it, the human mind always wonders what could have been or why did I do this and not do that. Then, after we've taken the beating from all the theory, memory, and wonder we find it in ourselves to say we mustn't live in the past and we should worry about today because someone once said, "Today is a gift, that's why we call it the present." But what does that make the past? The pot of gold or a lump of coal? And what is the future? They tell us 'the future is in our hands' but then one day far down the road we'll look back at days like today and sit still in the whole nostalgic gaze wondering thing and contemplate whether or not we did things right.
Everyone wants to put things in sequence. You know what I mean - beginning, middle, and end. Past, present, future. But why? Isn't life just a cluster of experiences that we either enjoy, hate, regret, long for, and embrace? Maybe in my 'Right-Brain' mind I just look at it and think - life just is. Don't get me wrong, I don't think we're all just floating around in some black hole. I believe in God and his son Jesus Christ and I believe in their divine power and I forsake all others. This aspect of who I am is what makes looking at things in whatever part of the sequence a situation is in - the past, the present, or the future - with a sense of security that their is a purpose behind everything. Actually, there is a purpose that we sit alone on our porches thinking about the past. There's a reason we're stuck in the still of that moment but we, as humans, want the answers to fall in our laps. Are we supposed to forget everything about that boy that broke our heart? Were we really supposed to forgive that friend that betrayed us? Did we pick the right place to move? Did we tell that person "I love you" enough times? See.... it drives you crazy.
I've walked around for a couple of weeks with a blank stare. I've been that girl with far-away eyes. I'm not sad, angry, emotionally unstable, nothing like that. I've simply been using that abstract mind I was born with and I've taken in things and thought about things that at one point I forgot to take in and embrace or at one point I promised myself I'd bury in the back of my memory and never think about again. Times of happiness, struggle, joy, sadness, celebration, self-pity, and times when I didn't feel anything - just numbness.
There's no answer, though. That is part of life - how it just is. You can spend hours, days, weeks, months, and sometimes even years spinning around in circles playing the 'what if' game. The only answer I've come up with is that the time spent wondering is time spent wasting. We can't change what happened in our past and we sure as hell can't prevent what is to come in our future. We can fight the current and try to keep our heads above the water but eventually we all surrender and let it carry us away. That's when the divine power saves us and we are reminded once again that purpose defeats all uncertainty. It really is true, I suppose, everything happens for a reason.
-BJJ
The 'Other' Sister
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