ghost town USA

In my melancholia of late I've spent too much time in days gone by, rifling through endless pages of "mind gone by" to find some consensus, some verdict on the balance of my behavior.

Some would call the effort folly (and in a time not long past, I'd have joined the chorus), but once we've plunged headlong into the steeplechase otherwise known as "Why?" we have little recourse but to ride out the hazards of the course and try to retain our mount.

Are these ghosts of me representative of any salient conclusion that might be had? Whether I've loved as well as I might have; whether I stepped in the shit once too often or not; whether I was at all times the best "me" that was within my grasp; these might all be points that are discernible, but they're also water under the bridge. I am who I am now, at this point in time -- and it's a "me" with which I am, though in many ways more a work in progress than ever before, reasonably satisfied.

So ghosts, be gone; fuck off; we gave at the office; whatever contemporary incantation best applies, kindly take notice -- your services will no longer be required.