Regretting the hypothetical

Have you ever made a difficult decision to change some part of your life and the way you perceive the world? Something happens, and you say to yourself "I don't need this." Then you work hard to change your mindset on this specific aspect of your life so it won't bother you anymore. So that a few miles down on the road you don't think about it, it isn't an issue, and quite frankly... You simply couldn't be bothered to care. It takes a lot of effort and determination, but further along the line you can take some appreciation and even the tiniest bit of confidence in the fact that you've fundamentally changed something that was once rooted in your day-to-day life. You've fought with the soil and thick dirt beneath your fingernails, and pull the weed out in its entirety. You study this foreign object in your hands, stand up, discard it to the side, and walk away to wash up.

Except you (apparently) missed a part.

Because in walks someone who embraced this part so fully and so well into their life, you can only imagine the extent of the positive effect. If you want to run with the whole weed analogy further, it's like the roots have just kept on growing and wrapped and curled their way around that person. Not in a restrictive or suffocating manner... But more of a coat of armour, something to keep them warm at night and their mind at peace in the conflict.

And all of the sudden, your determination and new-found confidence in this fresh outlook start to crumble. Well, not so much crumble as... Wobble. It's like you've made this massive, massive tower and they've effortlessly removed the brick right in the middle. Just enough loss of structural integrity to cause the entire building to sway gently in the breeze. And as the wind persists the swaying becomes more pronounced, until the whole shebang comes down in a terrific display.

Ok, enough with the shoddy metaphors and similes. The point is this you think you have a secure and sound foundation in your mode of rationalization, and all it takes is one person who wholeheartedly embraces what you decided to go without. It's really breath-taking how completely unnerving, uncomfortable and relentlessly easy it is for you to fall back and lose all assurance in yourself and the hard work you've done. Did you have it all wrong? Was it all a waste of time and oh-so-much effort? What would it be like if you would've done the same as this person, who has so casually/unknowingly broken everything? Could it have fix all your problems? What have you done?

It's just so hard to be around them, and that... thing they carry and display through everything they do.



Yeah, you wish there were specifics. But this one's in between me and the top shelf where my journal sits.
-Cril

Do I have time?
A man of my calibre
Stood in the street like a sleepwalking teenager
No.
And I dealt with this years ago
I took a hammer to every memento
But image on, image like beads on a rosary
Pulled through my head as the music takes hold
And the second it hits, I can work till I break
But I love the bones of you, that I will never escape

And it's you, and it's May
And we're sleeping through the day
And I'm five years ago
And three thousand miles away

Elbow & the BBC Orchestra - Bones of You