w00t w00t booyah

It's the old adage about how no one knows where you've really been but you. (Except that that's not always true, depending on who you trust, how much you've entrusted to them, and that, too is perfectly your business.)

The problem with being a bard is that you're entrusted with ten times as many stories as you are actually allowed to tell. Lord knows how many of other people's secrets I choose to keep on top of my own. Fortunate for me, then, that my life has been comparatively easy and simple, but I know of many who have had to start over, at 23, at 35, at 47, at 60. Someday, I may be able to tell those too, albeit in fictionalized form that glosses over the details of who, precisely, they are (because that's the only way I could ever get away with it).

We talk a lot, yes, but make no mistake: we are listening and we will learn because we'll get there too.

There's no point in judging one's past -- the idea is to learn from it, appreciate it as much as possible, regret it as little as you can for your own sake and sanity. Wear it on your sleeve or hide it as you see fit. It is part of you, too, then, now, and forever. It doesn't mean you'll act the same way you did in 1983. But that's not something that can (or should) be forgotten lightly.

That goes double for folks whose pasts were imposed on them by others.

I hope you can make any sense of these 4:30am ramblings ... I've uncharacteristically woken up philosophical in the early morning. :)