Thursday, July 14, 2011

In Hindsight

One of the fascinating bonuses of keeping a blog is how, sometimes, randomly, my own words come back to inspire, haunt, and/or, occasionally, entertain me.

Every once in awhile, I'm caught off guard by something I've written well and don't remember I wrote until later when someone else references it, after I've read it through and find myself given attribution at the end. That actually happened on a comment to a recent entry where I was quoted from a post I wrote last summer and didn't remember writing. As I read the comment, I thought to myself, "While this doesn't appear to have anything to do with the topic at hand, this is really good stuff! I wonder who wrote this? Oh. Heh. Right."

It really was pretty fine stuff. It's times like those when I think I might have something special in me.

Sometimes, I'll put something out here that, when I'm writing it, I wonder if I should be writing it at all...feeling like perhaps it's too revealing. It's a difficult perch to sit upon when I'm writing. I don't want to be so cryptic as to lose my audience but I don't want to say too much and get anyone's panties in a massive wad of whatever...woe, anger, embarrassment.

But this is where another of these bonuses comes in. By putting some of that stuff out there, I get the chance later to re-examine thoughts, topics of concern, and feelings from a distance. I get to see what happened in hindsight - not as my memory recalls it but how Jane of however many moons ago saw it and documented it in the very moment it was happening.

That's pretty cool.

Case in point, in re-reading a post from May 2nd, I realized now that I knew then. I was given the information I did not want but got anyway knowing it spelled demise. I saw the train wreck before the train actually even technically left the station. Clinical, distanced Jane can see that now...in hindsight. Overwrought Jane of 2 months ago sensed it, spoke of it, but wasn't ready to let go of all hope, choosing, instead, to believe in sincerity (imagined???) and in other people's ability to see underneath the shallow surface to the truth.

Overwrought Jane was wrong. Oh she was so very wrong (oh my, how the Fairy Gothfather really hates it when I refer to myself in the 3rd person *laugh*). There was no hope. Few people have the ability to actually see underneath the shallow surface when the shallow surface is the path most easily traveled. Had overwrought Jane just let go right then and there, perhaps the grief, anxiety, worry, angst might have been lessened to a degree. Overwrought Jane, in fact, didn't have the guts to see what was underneath the shallow surface either. Oh sure. She got handed the shallow surface of one person...on the proverbial silver platter. She chose to avoid looking more deeply at the other one - the one she had such high hopes for. The one she should have known was, in all earnestness, a coward.

Expectations. High hopes. They are one and the same. I understand that now. I should have seen it then. I did see it then. It was in my words. I just didn't write between the lines hard enough for me to see them...

Until now.

Bonus.

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