Why worry about whether this will happen or that will happen, or what if, or why … if an opportunity arises to do something, why not just do it?

Opportunities are few and dwindling. Especially with age and the consequences of choices made while indulging in the belief of never-ending youth.

Who, me?

No, I’m not going to admit to that. Yes, I suffer the consequences of my actions. Willingly, I might add. I rode horses, travelled distances by car and motorbike and foot and hoof. Long distances. A lot of different places.

The things I learned on those journeys will never leave me. I have my memory.

Ah, no,  it appears I don’t have all my memories. That’s where this post comes in. I lost a bit of it once, and today something reminded me of it. I’d forgotten.

My body froze when the words became real. I didn’t want to know, didn’t want to go to that time and place to remember the event. Or lack of what it meant.

It was a time when I should have made the decision to ‘do not’ but I didn’t. I did.

The consequence was a head injury that misplaced a couple of years of my memories. Gone. Kaput. Never to return.

Oh, there were some who said to be patient, that it would happen, that the mind was a wonderful thing, it could do anything.

The problem? I’d done something. It was important. It was being assessed for some reason. It would do something for my career. But there would be one final step. I had to stand before a group of my peers and make a presentation, take questions, and prove my understanding of the subject matter …

What happened? The papers were still there, the words existed, the time was set. I stood before the group of people, strangers now, in a cold sweat that rose from the petrification in the centre of my being.

There was no sound willing to come forth, no understanding of why the words were meant to be there, or what they meant. The blur on the pages looked like rough weather and banks of seaweed. Nonsense, with a stink of fear and decay.

I did what has been known to happen to others. I either fainted, or pretended to faint, or I died and went to hell. It was another moment lost.

Until today, when the papers were listed for destruction due to non-compliance with course objectives. The words were real. They meant something.

Once.

Not now, not to me. My world no longer includes those two years or so that decided to block off access to the vault.

They are alone, an island. A petrified tree of knowledge with no meaning.

It will not stop me taking advantage of the next opportunity, but maybe, on occasions, I could stop to think a fraction longer than was once the case — but don’t count on it! Life is short.

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It may be fiction, it may not … I do not recall.