20/20

You know how they say hindsight is always 20/20?  Well, for the past week this has been true for me.  A week ago, while trying to find something in the mess I call my room, I stumbled on a letter from the past.  At the time, when I read it, the letter seemed to be about a person in my life struggling with finding a direction in their life.  Something I could definitely relate to seeing as I often have trouble finding a path, but such is the internal battle.  I remember how I felt at that time, feeling concerned for this person, and wishing that in some way I could melt those fears away for them.  I mean, if you saw this letter you would understand that thought that was put into it.  There were bullet points, asterisks and underlines.  This obviously was a deep thought for this individual to put so much passion into it with a pen.  Yes this was a letter written to me specifically, and yes this person is an ex.  No it was not a break up letter.  At least that is what I thought at the time.  This brings us back to that hindsight is 20/20.  But before I continue on with that I suppose it is best to talk about how I view myself.

I was a child of a two working parent household.  I attended a grade school that was 27 miles from my home.  Stayed at an aunts after school and didn't see my friends except for the weekends.  And never really hung out with anyone I went to school with cause I was not around them on the weekends.  I had two best friends through grade school.  At the end of grade school, I became the proud brother of my 4th sibling who was born with some serious medical issues.  At 13 I was learning medial procedures to help care for her so that I could help my parents out.  Then for high school, although it was closer to home, there was no one I had gone to grade school with attending there.  And to top it all off, it was a college prep school so the people that did attend were not all from "the neighborhood" but rather were commuters from a much larger area.  I think it was these experiences that made me into the person I am.  I had two best friends, and what seemed like many acquaintances.  I think that when I call someone a friend I am very loyal to being the best friend I can be for them.  To this day I think that this is the case.  Even though my two best friends have moved on to have families, or jobs that moved them away, whenever they need my help I will drop what I can to be there for them.  And that is how I view my role in a relationship.

My parents have always said that to make a relationship work, you need to communicate.  I know that this can be hard, especially if you love someone.  At least for me it is that way.  When I was wearing those rose colored glasses I did not want to do anything that would hurt the person that means so much to me.  For me that was as simple as always making sure to share any possible plan thoughts with them, and bounce ideas off of them.  And for the first couple of years that was perfect and things seemed to be going swimmingly.  But then things changed for us.  Unexpected forks in the road appeared, and things changed drastically.  But I was still up beat and supportive even though things were a little tighter, and a little more stressful at times.  Then the letter happened, and I will admit, at the time the path seemed to be filled with obstacles, and maybe at times patience would get thin, but it never made me care less about this person in my life, it made me sad that I could not whisk all of her fears away and make things better.  But I was still very much committed to what we had together.  But then the letter happened.  And at that moment, I thought it was her fear that was causing some rocky issues, and I tried to put her mind at ease.  Back to the 20/20 thing again.  And I don't feel that continuing on is necessary here, cause after all, that is not what this is about.

Hindsight is always 20/20, it is a great statement, of course hindsight is always 20/20.  When you know the outcome, you know what you should have done.  I should have played those numbers on the lotto instead of what I played.  Or I should have put money on that game.  Or I should have (enter statement here).  And that damn note just had to pop up and linger in my head all week, didn't it.  As I am sure you have figured out, the end of that relationship was not at all smooth.  And for me, it was more like there was no end to it.  In fact it was never ended, it was more of an end cause of what I learned after the separation.  And that is why this letter is such the bummer for me.  All of that thought and love that went into writing this note that at the time was me thinking was her struggle with the things happening around us all of a sudden is a note of her trying to validate what was really going on in her head.  Those asterisks and bullet points and underlines all have new meaning.  Hindsight IS always 20/20.  And that is why this note was stuck in my head this entire week.  Had I seen that note for what it was, months of pain could have been avoided.

I don't know, just had to write something to clear my mind.  Well, that completes this what I am sure is a disconnected mess of thoughts.  I am not going to proof read this cause this is all about clearing the mind of things that are bothering you.  I recently gave advise to a good friend to do this exact thing, just write it down and get it out.  It was time I took my own advise and I must admit that now that I have done it, I feel a weight is lifted.  Figures that hindsight is always 20/20 would be the outcome of this exact post.  Cause now that it is done, it is a good piece of advise I gave.