25 minutes

A friend asked me once why I really liked that song. After some thought, I answered that somehow I had a feeling(of the nagging kind), that somehow, I knew that I would one day just be a man of regret. Somehow, I knew I would be the type to look back and hope that there was more that I could have said or done. Somehow, despite my bitterness and reasons, I always knew that I could have been better. I knew that when I'd come to my senses, I'd be too late.

Sometimes I wonder if there really is such a thing as freedom. Can people really be anything other than themselves? The battered wife. The tolerant father. The class slut. The loud obnoxious friend. The passive observer. The crazy guy next door. The lonely lover. If people play a role for too long, they become that role and in some odd way they define themselves by it, like it's the only reality that they could understand no matter how inane or difficult it is. As much as I hate it, we can actually fit into those small little boxes of judgement, those little cages that limit character. We are who we are.

I don't know. To a certain degree, it's one of the reasons why I used to be a perfectionist. I guess, I knew I would not be good at dealing with mistakes, with failure, with apologies. So I decided I wouldn't make any. Mistakes that is. I had a good run, but not good (or long) enough.

I really don't know. I wish I could be anything more than this. Whatever this is. I am the same. Always have been. Always will be. I cannot be anything more.

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"Consciously or unconsciously we all strive to make the kind of a world we like."
-Oliver Wendell Holmes