The last few years — perhaps longer, as my sense of time becomes increasingly skewed as I continue to age — I made a deliberate effort to stop dwelling on and mulling over the past, and I met with surprising success.

I just stopped writing about the past, stopped reading and editing old things I wrote about the past, and tried to focus more on the present — weaving in past experiences into my writing when they’re relevant to current experiences, yes, but that is different in my view. I also do look back on my incredibly strange experiences over the years, though again, I find this different, as I typically do this when I’m exploring hypotheses, doing research, doing my damnedest to build a context through which those unusual experiences might make sense.

Lately, though, I’ve found my mind drifting back to past times, to old friends and aquaintences, as well as old relationships — the few I’ve had, but mostly Anne in this area. In any case, what I try not to dwell on is regret: what could have been, might have been, perhaps should have been had I been wiser. What if I had committed myself to Anne? What if I had finished college? Even earlier than that, and more to the point here, what if I had did what my art teacher suggested, put together a diverse portfolio, and tried to get myself into art school?

When I entered college in my thirties, I did so as I had decided what I wanted to do: become an English teacher. I’ve wrote every day since as far back as I can remember, and to be a teacher in that area had become profoundly appealing to me. Not only could I make an impact on young minds and hopefully do my little part in trying to make the world a better place, but as my creative writing and literary analysis courses in high school and college revealed to me, I could incorporate damn near anything into my teaching. I could talk about social issues, philosophical issues, religion and spirituality, politics and the paranormal. I could both stimulate minds, give them a space where they could engage in self expression, and guide them towards more effective means of translating what they held within to those who were receptive. On the way to earning this role and once I managed to embody it, I, too, would learn about such things and be able to share my knowledge. It was not only a meaningful vocation in the sense that I would be helping others, thought I, but a path that would help me evolve myself as well. In addition, I would have a day job involved with what I really wanted to do, which was write for a living.

I did great in college, too — until my last semester, when I had my first public speaking course and it all went to shit. The first (and last) day of that class that all-too-familiar anxiety attack reared its ugly head.

In college, I had focus and structure; a meaningful goal and a step-ladder approach to achieving it. And then I fell off that ladder, flat on my ass, and that dream was crushed. It was a horrid ordeal. I dropped out and tried to accept my pathetic lot in life.

I’m still working on that.

Maybe it wasn’t the right path, though, or at least the right process. I should have gone to art school, disciplined myself in the visual arts, and established myself as an artist. Once established, once making money by means of my art, I could have then branched out — writing articles, books, blending my passion for writing and the visual arts through producing a comic, children’s books, and onward from there.

I just needed some foundation. I feel it should have been art, but it could have been writing as well — in any case, upon that foundation I could have then had the necessary discipline and opportunities to pursue and incorporate the other passion. Multiple passions.

Insights from this lifetime that I hope carries over into the next incarnation and has a considerable impact on my decision-making.

Yeah, yeah, its not too late, even as I’m bound in my present flesh. I’m only 42 and could live for another half a century or more. Or I could die tomorrow. In any case, its never too late, so they say — and though I would argue it certainly could be, at this exact moment, at the very least, I confess there is no certainty that it is.

After all, So-and-So didn’t publish their first book or become a respected artist until they were fifty-something, you constantly hear. Still, there is no certainty that I am among the So-and-So’s.

“Why not try?” Asks an internal voice. “You have nothing to lose, so much to gain here in the mere attempt. So what, then: are you a pussy?”

I mean, I am warm right now, moderately moist, and wound tight inside, so the comparison might have some merit.

“You’re deflecting.”

Well, you’re attempting to manipulate me.

“I’m trying to inspire you. And if that constitutes manipulation, I’m only trying to manipulate you into veering down what you would experience as a more satisfying and productive path. And anyway, I’m you, dude. Can’t you trust yourself?”

Not entirely. I mean, I am sort of dwelling on the past again.