Self-induced melancholia . . .

This one goes along with "Second-guessing" and "Never Assume". You know what that does. I think about all the times in my life when I've done both. We all have. I'm not unique. The end result? Pure torture. But no matter how hard one tries, it's difficult to avoid. It all goes back to those 'shoulda's, coulda's, and woulda's', and I vowed never to let those happen. But I did. I'm human. I sometimes think I did everything wrong, or I didn't do quite enough. There's no taking it back. It's too late. So what do you do? You pack up all of those thoughts and tuck them into the "forget it" trunk in a back corner of your mind where you hope they'll never again surface. But they will. And when they do, I'll just look them all over, turn them around and upside down, and put them away again. The only saving Grace is that I can admit that I have regrets. You might ask what brought this on . . . a long walk with my iPod. Too much time to think about what should have been.

The canoe that now belongs to my neighbor