24.02.2023 Divorced from my former reality.

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 Friday 24th 3C/38F. Dark overcast and windy, with rain forecast all day. 

 9.30 The rain moved on. To leave a clear patch behind it. So I had my walk anyway in brief glimpses of sunshine. Though I shortened my route at the junction to the lanes. There was an eye watering headwind. So I turned around and retraced my steps. While dodging the tire spray from the traffic. 

 Exactly as I predicted, the road was littered with twigs from yesterday's hedge slashing. Everything was very wet. With the gravel drives almost continuous puddles.

 14.00 7C/45F. Lunch over. I was bored with the dark skies early on. So I went for a drive in showers and occasional sunny periods. Taking in a series of charity shops. Which my wife and I would often visit in turn. As we drove further away from home through a string of rural villages. Three of the shops have now gone. I saw nothing to tempt me into buying anything. Nothing to remind me of that receding past.

21.00 Dinner was fish fingers. Not with pasta and tomatoes because there was no pasta. Not chicken curry. Because there was no rice. So I had fish fingers with beans and sieved, tinned tomatoes. It was delicious. I mopped up the plate with a bread roll. 

 My family members have have kindly forwarded lots of family pictures. By digital means. Multiple lifetimes captured on a chip the size of a postage stamp. Probably going right back to the late 1960s or early 1970s. 

 It all felt very strange stepping from one picture to the next. While I could identify most of the characters it all seemed so unreal. Or perhaps surreal. Somehow I could not place myself as present in their company. Not looking as we all once did. We were all so much better looking than I remembered. Each preoccupied with living our tangled lives. Making the best of the chances and conditions we had been given. No clue as to how it would all turn out. 

 The endless struggles, mistakes and miscommunications. Tied by biologically programmed love but each trying to find our own feet. Forging our own identities without being very aware of it at the time. Cast onto a small, but ever expanding stage. Desperately avoiding being just an extra. Wanting to really matter.

 It is fortunate that we are not  given the power to go back. To right all the countless wrongs. Accidental or otherwise. Life would become infinitely more complicated. Each attempt to make things better would produce a whole cascade of change. Not always for the better. 

 Given the knowledge I have now I could have made a much better job of being me. Given my wisdom, from accumulated experience, I could have done so much more. Been kinder, less judgemental, more open, far braver and much less intimidated. 

 Most of us are denied foresight and it must be counted a blessing. It keeps us on task and remaining firmly in character. More self-disciplined. More reliable. More productive. More useful. More sensible. More valuable. Would a wiser person still be me?

 The frustration and misery of failing memory may ultimately be a gentle kindness. To cushion us from the searing pain of loss. To distance us from the sudden, inexplicable loneliness. To quench the tears when we still had unspoken plans. To live together forever. There was no room in our saga. For such an unlikely ending. It just wasn't in our scripts.   

 

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