Then I suppose regret is unnecessary.
Written on a bus winding through city roads, and in a quiet room overlooking city lights, by a brain dead roasted by work:
Live life in reverse: ride against the sunset, look out the window and pretend to face the glow of sunrise. As you collapse into the fatigue of night, somewhere else around the world a new day breaks and you get a chance to start again, no matter where you are standing right now. Somewhere else around the world someone has dipped the stained watercolour brush back into the water jar and is swirling it clean, getting ready to paint over the skies to start a brand new day. Somewhere else around the world, you are just about to embark on a whole new chance to start again. The night may not erase memories of days past, but it tends to desaturate them one tone at a time, blur the edges, until one day history dissolves into the grand infinite scheme of things into a near-nothingness that hovers above the waters like a mist, brushing against our skin but barely recognisable. The past will dissolve not into complete nothingness, but a mystery of a presence, an enigma that lingers and then goes. That's where the shackles of the past slowly break away, chain by chain, descending into the silence of the navy seas. You then push your head above the water, break through the weight of the meniscus and emerge free, gasping for the morning air. There it is: sunrise on the other end of the world, dawn of a new day.
Live life in reverse: because you can only put the pieces together when you have seen them. You can only retrace the steps you have taken and see how they have led you out of the forest, out of the dark as you stumble into sunrise, into the light at the end of a long, winding tunnel. You can only draw a map after you've travelled the road and climbed the rocks and waded across the streams. You can only see that scars heal after you have put them on, bandage them and grit your teeth through the sores and itches of wounds knitting themselves closed. Pain is a hard memory to keep at a distance, but keep looking back at it anyway, because there's a reason why they're called "growing pains". You're breaking through your old shell, breaking the ceilings and growing in strength and capacity. If you're growing bigger in heart and soul and strength, how can you stay within the constraints of your old skeleton? Look back, look at how far you've come, and straighten your back now to stand tall and proud. Let the shadow fall behind you as you face the dawn of a new day. Give thanks and praise for the guidance you have received along the way. Give thanks for hindsight, the lens that adds a new dimension to all experiences past. Sometimes it's a tint, sometimes it's a magnifying glass, sometimes it's a clean lens; whatever it is, it's nice to see that you have survived, you have emerged, you have grown, and that in some ways you have become stronger and braver and better than before. This jungle called life, it sure nurses growth within its foliage.
Live life in reverse: ride against the sunset, look out the window and pretend to face the glow of sunrise. As you collapse into the fatigue of night, somewhere else around the world a new day breaks and you get a chance to start again, no matter where you are standing right now. Somewhere else around the world someone has dipped the stained watercolour brush back into the water jar and is swirling it clean, getting ready to paint over the skies to start a brand new day. Somewhere else around the world, you are just about to embark on a whole new chance to start again. The night may not erase memories of days past, but it tends to desaturate them one tone at a time, blur the edges, until one day history dissolves into the grand infinite scheme of things into a near-nothingness that hovers above the waters like a mist, brushing against our skin but barely recognisable. The past will dissolve not into complete nothingness, but a mystery of a presence, an enigma that lingers and then goes. That's where the shackles of the past slowly break away, chain by chain, descending into the silence of the navy seas. You then push your head above the water, break through the weight of the meniscus and emerge free, gasping for the morning air. There it is: sunrise on the other end of the world, dawn of a new day.
Live life in reverse: because you can only put the pieces together when you have seen them. You can only retrace the steps you have taken and see how they have led you out of the forest, out of the dark as you stumble into sunrise, into the light at the end of a long, winding tunnel. You can only draw a map after you've travelled the road and climbed the rocks and waded across the streams. You can only see that scars heal after you have put them on, bandage them and grit your teeth through the sores and itches of wounds knitting themselves closed. Pain is a hard memory to keep at a distance, but keep looking back at it anyway, because there's a reason why they're called "growing pains". You're breaking through your old shell, breaking the ceilings and growing in strength and capacity. If you're growing bigger in heart and soul and strength, how can you stay within the constraints of your old skeleton? Look back, look at how far you've come, and straighten your back now to stand tall and proud. Let the shadow fall behind you as you face the dawn of a new day. Give thanks and praise for the guidance you have received along the way. Give thanks for hindsight, the lens that adds a new dimension to all experiences past. Sometimes it's a tint, sometimes it's a magnifying glass, sometimes it's a clean lens; whatever it is, it's nice to see that you have survived, you have emerged, you have grown, and that in some ways you have become stronger and braver and better than before. This jungle called life, it sure nurses growth within its foliage.