Those decisions you can't take back

Every day we have a chance to start anew - new sunrise, new hope, new day to begin.  We have the ability to move passed any pain from yesterday, believing today will be the day we are able to overcome our fears, overcome previous hurts, overcome previous haunts.

It would be nice to live in a world where a new dawn truly represented a clean slate.  A new day where everything was fresh again.  A day where decisions we made yesterday, or yesteryear no longer haunt us.  But this is not how life works.  Our hearts are fickle.  We rely upon the past to protect us today.  We learn that if we touch something that is hot, it will burn.  We commit this to memory, rely upon this as a safeguard.

Do we ever really get over the decisions we made, move forward, and never rehash those moments in our heads and hearts again?

I can remember decisions I made that I wish I had done differently.  I remember the smell in the air, the way the light was reflecting in the room as I made my decision.  I can remember the background noises, quiet, undefined, but deafening none the less.  That moment where I crossed the line from unsure to definite in the decision process, so much like crossing the finish line at some imaginary race my mind was running.  That feeling of knowing I could not go back once the action occurred.  And the terror to realize maybe I could have chosen differently, had a better outcome, higher success rate had I just thought a bit longer.  These decisions are not for the faint of heart.  They are not the decisions you can joke about.  It isn't a "Coke or Pepsi?" type of decision.

Sometimes, there is no ability to know if you are making the right decision.  You have to go on faith.  There is no right or wrong answer, only a different path that you will start upon.  Other times, it is a great struggle because you know it alters your world in such a way you are forever changed.  Those decisions, those that affect your heart, mind, body, and soul; those are the decisions where your view of the world is no longer what it was 10 seconds beforehand.  Those are the decisions that can't be changed.  Good or bad, you now must live with the responsibilities of your decision.  You must somehow learn to move passed the pain, to learn to love again, laugh again, trust and hope again. 

I hope to be able to move passed the pain.  I hope I can learn how to love again, to laugh again.  I hope I know how to trust again.  I want to believe again.  And that all just takes time, I suppose.