No Do-Overs

The dinner you skipped is not coming back.

The conversation you avoided is over. The apology you delayed has already aged. The man you were going to be at thirty does not exist anymore — the deadline passed five years ago and nobody told you.

You believe in second chances because the alternative is unbearable.

But, there are no second chances.

There are only next chances.

The next chance is not the same as the one you missed. The window you let close stays closed. A new one opens. It is not the old one.

This is not despair.

This is honesty.

Most people live in the imagined room of what could still be repaired. They think the body they neglected is waiting patiently for them to come back. They believe the lost weekend is recoverable or that the relationship that drifted is on pause. None of it is.

The clock ticks forward. It never ticks back.

The moment you are in right now is already becoming a moment you cannot get back. The dinner tonight, the call you should make today, the version of yourself you could become this week — all of it is on the same clock.

Stop waiting for the do-over. There is no do-over.

There is only the next one.

Treat it like the only one.

Because that is what it is.

“Forever is composed of nows.” — Emily Dickinson