You Can Always Start Over From Here

Daily Post Writing Challenge:  Starting Over

Same Old Brand New You (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Starting over in time is not possible no matter how fervently you might wish for it.  Time marches on, and do-overs of your past are nothing more than head games.  Stop torturing yourself with regrets, wondering how things might have turned out if you had done them differently.  You can’t change where you’ve been, but you can start now and head off in a different and better direction.  Starting over means starting from where you are now.  Here’s a starting over list to get you started.

1.  You can’t go back and start your childhood over again.  For one thing, your parents are too old for that now and would never be able to keep up with you.  And it’s just too difficult to find onsies in your size.

But you can still  build a fort out of the couch cushions, color a picture with your crayons and tack it up on your fridge, or leap from one piece of furniture to another to avoid the lava and the monsters whenever you feel like it.  Try not to break your neck – you’re not five years old anymore.  But no matter what age you are,  it’s still okay to cry when things go wrong.  You can still  laugh hard and play hard and love with all your heart.

2.  You can never take back the words you’ve spoken, or written, or sent by text.  Once they’ve left your mouth or your pen or your fingers, they will forever belong to whoever heard or read them.  They have power.  Will they be hurtful or helpful?  It’s not possible to un-say something, so try very hard to get it right the first time.  When all else fails, blame temporary insanity and auto-correct.

3.  You can’t unbreak things.  But you can try to mend them.  As in the case of ‘hearts’ for instance.  But if we’re talking about some piece of crap junk that never worked right in the first place, save yourself some grief and agony and get a new one.  It’s only a thing.  It won’t hold a grudge.

4.  Baking cannot be unburned.  But there are windows you can open to let the smoke out.

5. If you are a parent who has your childs best interests at heart, you still will not always do or be what they need most.  Forgive yourself.  You are human and you will make mistakes.  Learn from both your kids and your blunders, start over from here and try to do better.

6. If it’s not possible to start over in a new job, start making small changes that will help to make your present job easier.  You can’t change the people you work with, but you can change the way you act and react with them.  You can change your attitude.  I’m not suggesting it’s easy to do that, but I am telling you it’s not impossible.

7.  You might not be in a financial position to burn your house down and rebuild it, but you can start over in one room, or in one small section of a room, and renovate and reorganize and revamp until you’re so happy with the results you want to spend all your home time in that exact spot.  Well, you know, within reason.  Hopefully we’re not discussing a closet here.

8.  It may be a little late in your life to start over with a brand new career, but it is never too late to learn a new skill or to change the path you’re on.  It’s never too late to teach someone else the things you know.

Brand New Day (Photo credit: Tim Albano)

9.  You can’t start over from the beginning and have a better relationship with somebody.  And it’s a very sad thing to discover that the person you wanted to be closer to has suddenly gone from your life and that you will never have the chance to work on that relationship and to know him better.  Learn, learn, learn from this.  Don’t wait for the bond to miraculously form on its own, start working on it now.

10.  You can never start over and take better school pictures of yourself and change that geeky face that only a mother could love.  You can’t re-write your high school year books or change who your friends were or any of the decisions you made as a young adult.  But you can learn to love the person you were, and know that the choices you made then are the reasons you have become who you are now.

Right this minute, tomorrow morning, next week – you can start over from wherever you happen to be.  The changes do not have to be sudden or tumultuous.  Second chances and new beginnings can start small, and from deep within.

This is where you’ve landed – now spread your wings and fly.

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