Groundhog Day

The collective history of humanity is full of tales of people who are doomed to keep living a specific day of their life over and over again. There is a reason that people feel the need to express this phenomenon in works of fiction. That reason is that for many of us it is a reality.

For a long time I had a variety of memories that kept repeating.  Moments I regretted and wished I could take back. Everyone has these, those little clips that nag us until our dying day like a bad movie. Most of these memories lose their edge over time. They become more and more dull until they cannot hurt us any longer.

However, I have a specific memory. An event. A punctuation point in time, that I cannot change. I will never be able to go back. I will never be able to change it. I don't have the means or the ability to fight it. It simply is and it hurts every day.

The sting never stops. I have tried to cultivate a fantasy where I can see the after-effects of this day differently. But, at the end, I know the truth. One mistake. One poor, brief evening of bad judgement that took place in the midst of an irrational amount of pain, has taken something from me that I will never, every truly get back again.

And every day, I live it over again. It keeps me up every night. It haunts me from behind those irritating Facebook memories. It breaks me over and over. And it is the top thing I have zero control over. The top thing I will be eternally judged on. The thing that she will never forgive me for and probably never understand.