The good old days to come
I spend too much time in the future. And in the past.
More than is good, I think about what's to come. Fantasising about some future where whatever troubles me will be out of my mind. Big or small, if something is bothering me, I tend to retreat into my mind and escape into a rosy coloured future.
Upon reflection, I remember well times past when all I longed for was the life I live today. But, even if I have arrived at what was once a distant rosy future, I still find myself thinking about the future. A future where this one burden is no longer mine to carry. Where I have more freedom and fewer dependants. More time and less dependencies.
I also reminisce about the days I spent longing for the future that has become the now. In hindsight, how marvellous those days were. With the carefree body and mind of a young man and all the freedom in the world. What worries? The loneliness and the insecurities are all gone now.
It is a fallacy.
There is no past. Memories are not the past. Merely a collection of mental memorabilia. The emotions of those sights and sounds, touches and smells are not real. They have no more in common with the days that came and went than does a portrait painting with the person it depicts.
The future is a mirage. A vague grouping of plans, ideas and dreams. Made by someone who tomorrow won't exist. Made for someone who will never come to be. Whatever it might bring, if tomorrow comes I will be changed. Who I think of as me won't be there to receive the gifts I wish for him.
Now is all there is.
Never mind the pressures of day. All that I have to do but would rather not. The things I would rather do but cannot find the time for. People I wish could be with again. People I wish I could get to know.
Playing football with my six year old son.
Singing with my three year old daughter.
The moments someone resembling me used to dream of. The moments someone resembling me will desperately long to relive. They are the good days to come of the past. They are the good old days of the future.
They are the good old days to come. They are all that is real.
They are now.