Circadian Rhythm, or what of it.

Every so often, I'm reminded.

Sometimes the things that we rethink, whatever minor memory has escaped us for so long, such an incident, a small but life-seizing interaction, can bring us to a place of relief. Of true gratitude for what we've overcome or learned or lived through.

We have all lived through without realizing it. It comes back to us someday when we are watching nothing or laughing loudly or checking time or sitting back. Suddenly we're transported, composed by our memory alone, gently lifted back to the time we found forgiveness or absolute fear or wondered if you would ever again feel anything but sadness at the thought of your own two hands.

We are reminded that we have survived peculiar feats, such specific pains that we were convinced, we were quite certain, from which we would never recover. But we have. In time, we have been eased backwards, we have felt less. We have moved on, we have bought new furniture, we have replaced loved ones, we have taken down photographs, we have let our histories gather dust beneath our present days, we have shut our lifetimes behind doors, we have looked forward forever, until now. Until the now where we are reminded of what we come from, of what we've needed thus far.

This is the type of release that surely may bring back whatever part of that pain remains. Perhaps just the stretch that it caused us to feel, the small ache of reaching for something, for another. There is ultimately more tragedy in what we can reach but somehow still fail to grasp.

When we are back to those moments of our lives, whether the song on the radio delivered us to it, whether it was the way you held your face against the window or the sound of faint conversation that brought you back, it may feel good to see the distance between where we stand and where we've stood. It's breathing. It's solace for time spent.

We can remember our pasts continuously. We can go by each day with a new memory, an I-haven't-thought-of-this-in-years situation, and there's an awfully good chance we'll never go back to it again.

Sometimes, however, the ways we are reminded are outside of ourselves, out on the edge of elsewhere, having to do with something much larger than our own inconsistencies, misgivings, aspirations. Who we've been is no longer relevant. We are. And we reflect. And we learn from the outside world; unrelated circumstances reveal themselves in full light. We have nowhere to look but directly into it, no matter where that leaves us.

And that, I must say, is much worse.

It is far easier to be embarrassed by our own faults then to face head on the faults of living that we exist in but cannot change.

We can rewrite where we've been. We can omit certain asides, we don't have to give it all up, we can broadcast our good points, we can pick our easiest flaws, if we're feeling honest. Who we are is our choice to reveal, to those we trust, or to no one at all.

But when reality reveals itself, uninvited and, on most occasions, unwanted, it's often ugly. It's harsh lines force themselves our way. We have to stare into what we know is there, what stands so blatant and upright before us, and say things like, this is how it is, we can't change this, or, should we dare: well, life's not fair.

It's maddening, yet undeniable. What diverts the fairness from reaching us? We can understand what fair would seem to be. We can dare to imagine what it would look like, somewhat gossamery, full of unknown light. We can expect all this with sincere earnest, we can truly believe in its possibility, however many times we've been let down before. And then a simple switch occurs, and suddenly we've lost our income, our lover, our hope. We've driven over a small creature, the smallest being that only meant to safely get from one patch of nature to the next, simply crushed under anybody's tires.

Then, what's fair?

When we're reminded of things such as this, what then should we believe in learning? More, pardon me, awful things such as, All things happen for a reason, may race to our minds.

I, for one, have trouble with such certain measure.

Yes, the cyclicality of life outweighs our ability to understand it.

Still. I'd like a little truth. As much as it would surely hurt, I would like to understand why we are where we are. What happens happens, whether to us or because of us, and fair does not become our situation, not often, not today. It's the pattern to our dilemma.

We merely pulse. Carry on. Repeat.