Life is one of those funny places where you only know that you've made the wrong decision once you're fully committed.
There are moments during when you realize that you're the one at fault. And those are the moments that shake you more than anything. It's a panic that rushes through you. It rises and rises until you're barely holding on to your conviction. You're staring at wood paneling and you're wondering what in the hell you're doing.
And then you think, but I must be right; I've been right before? and the end of the thought trails upward until it reaches your ears and you realize you're asking a question.
Have you been right before? Will you ever really know? Hindsight may start 20/20 but contemplation kills it. It destroys it. The moment - that singular moment - when you realize that there really are two sides to every story will ruin your life. It will change the way you view everything. There is no longer right, but equal (and entirely opposite) reasons for both "right" and "right," because the wrong you thought existed was never real. That's when uncertainly overtakes you.
You see so clearly. You see the future, suddenly, flashing before you. You see the past, much slower. It's all there. And yet, you're nagged by the what if? That is the nagging feeling that drives men out to sea for six months at time, thrilled by the prospect of hitting it big; those are the feelings that draw both gamblers and athletes. They draw cynics and believers alike. The marriage of chance and hope is a truly beautiful and rotten thing, all of it at once. There are moments of sheer wonder, the payoff, the jackpot, the joy. But those are the moments that punctuate the quickly familiar refrain of failure.
Being an optimist requires the ability to feel so deeply that you're allowed to feel untempered joy at the cost of feeling unmitigated pain for seemingly unending periods of time. Being in search of the truth will lead you in circles. It's a terrifying labyrinth of possibilities and yes, choice.
The more I live in this life, the more I realize that black and white cannot exist. It's only just the many shades of gray, all defensible and all too real.
