but...
as you're zippity-do-dahing down the road with Mr. Bluebird on your shoulder...
blam.
It hits you. Striking through the skin, brain and heart, right smack dab to the center of your being, your core, your center...
your soul.
Puncturing with honest shards, jagged with edges of truth, is the realization that there is no reason to ponder over whether or not you may or may not have made a mistake.
Simply because you didn't. Make a simple mistake, that is. No, we're far past the meek gaffe, the naive error and it's older sibling, the uh oh.
No, what is violently fleshing you away is a totally whole and utterly complete sinking feeling of epic proportion with damning and potentially fatal consequence.
You made a HUGE mistake. Colossal. Quite big, in fact.
uh oh...
Pearl S. Buck wrote " Every great mistake has a halfway moment, a split second when it can be recalled and perhaps remedied."
The bitch of the bunch is clamoring back to that moment despite the fact that it's already too late to do anything anyway. Shall we slip into something more suffocating? Perhaps wrap ourself, no, enshroud ourself in regret? Stands to reason.
I think not however.
Regret, though somewhat inevitable, isn't certain. Sociopaths have this particular talent nailed, lucky-substance abusing-blame-shifting-emotionally catatonic-motherfuckers that they are. Sure, you can wile away the days with should haves, could haves, why did I's and what the fucks? but it still isn't the most life depleting aspect of the situation.
The entire moment of realization is the offending thorn in the side of your conscience. Make a mistake? Could be good, could be bad. NEVER KNOWING you made a mistake? Free of nagging thoughts making you stop and reflect...hmmm. I suppose if you have a conscience, then you would it expect it to kick in. But taking a lesson from our sociopathic friends, not ever having a simple sniff as to what has or has not occured, unable to reflect upon prior action with an ounce of accountability...never suffering from one single solitary pang of guilt.
Is that to be envied?
You be the judge. For the time being, I'm going to flip a coin to determine how I should be feeling as I write this.
Heads I win...tails I lose.
And the only thing I'll have to regret is reaching in my pocket.
