Turning back the clock.

It's a world built on questions, on decisions made by weighing consequences, evaluating possibilities. There are infinite paths, infinite combinations, and nothing is ever carved in stone but the past.

This is true for all of us, and it's what leads us to spend our lives wondering about the could haves and the would haves; we have no solid ground to stand on until we can take one path, turn around and look back at the past and wonder which path we should have taken.

And when we see that we've made a bad decision, there is no turning back the clock. There are yet more options, and sometimes, we take the path that leads us blindly ahead, leaving the mistake to fester, to rot there on the proverbial trail, and we try to forget. But it does not go.

I find myself looking back at one of these and wondering about the should haves and could haves and I, standing on this solid ground that is hindsight, I extend my arms in apology to those friends of mine I've pushed away in troubled times.

A pattern is showing upon the backward glance. I have jettisoned some of the people who meant the very most to me. I have let the memory of their faces, their scents, their laughter -- their very being -- haunt me for years, follow me down the roads that lead me away with my back turned.

And now, I want to say that I am sorry.

I was very, very wrong.