The Undone

OK, the past is the past and there’s no changing that. Likewise, far be it from me to assign any guilt thereto related to anyone but myself. Nonetheless, I think we all have a tendency to gaze off into the past and regret certain things. Often, those things will be what we meant to get around to ... and never did. Some of those regrets will be so insignificant that they are better laid completely to rest. However, many people (myself included) carry around the memory of several wrong turns we would like to backtrack and make a turn at. We have some worthy dreams and callings that, for some reason or other, never got pursued. It’s never too late. Does that mean one should abandon his or her family obligations to run off and join the circus? May it never be. Yet there are many course corrections which still could be made in order to shorten the “regret list.” Even for those of us who still haven’t decided what we would like to be when we grow up, there’s still time. Work-a-holic? Chronic procrastinator? Unfulfilled dreamer? Closet missionary? Someone who just wants to be a better parent or child? Don’t give up. Life isn’t perfect, nor will it ever be, but the saddest life is one where a person has given up completely. Sure, there are things we haven’t done, important tasks we never got around to. Perhaps we should transfer them from the liability column into the opportunity column and see where that takes us. For however deep the roots of the past may run, the future is still essentially a blank slate, an empty canvas. There is much yet to be done.

The Undone
The most wretched demons I have known
Are the deeds I have left undone
As the weeks and months and years have flown
Leaving countless things hardly begun
How many a lofty dream, like sand
In the hourglass of my days
Slipped through the grasp of my idle hands
Until it drifted completely away
The things I always proclaimed I’d do
The projects I meant to start
Mock me for failing to see them through
Breaking, as waves, upon my heart
What of the risks I dared not take
The unlooked for things not found
The noblest gestures, for heaven’s sake
Which I left scattered across the ground
Undaunted am I by what lies ahead
The future holds but little fear
Yet, over my shoulder ever lurks
Dreaded ghosts of wasted years
But I must look back, lest I forget
Those demons of things undone
And find resolve, through my regret
To keep from spawning another one
By Frank Carpenter ©