Flames From Our Past©

(By Wayne L. Misner www.MenDontListen.com, MenDontListen@aol.com)

  Maybe attending a class reunion or browsing around on Facebook or just daydreaming ...has us reliving our memories of a flame of long ago. It’s easy to think, “would my life have been different”…As I replay my life, it seems as if it’s an old Silent movie like “The Artist”. I feel myself being pulled into the mental attitude and place where I was all those years ago, and I feel myself almost panicking. What if I married this other person?

  Where would I be in my personal growth if I'd stayed there? If "things" had worked out for us, who would I have become? Would I be me today? Would I be someone much better? Or no, maybe worse. I believe we all, from time to time, have wondered about old flames. Of course, to love is to risk not being loved in return. Would it have been better? Would I be happier? Would it have worked out?  It may be true that we didn't know what we had till they were gone, but it's also true that we don't know what we've been missing until they arrive.

  I had never asked myself how it would have changed me. Who would I have been? One thing is for sure, my core principals would have stayed the same, and there would have been other changes, I’m sure. I'm very happy with the "me" that I am now. I have paid such a high price acquiring the bad, good and the ugly to finally arrive to this caring, loving person.

  So I turned from my computer and gaze out the window trying to understand where all the years have gone.…………