Sometimes I'll get a sudden debilitating flash memory. It's violent like a seizure, but obviously doesn't manifest itself physically other than me just completely zoning out. I don't know what triggers them. It's not usually something that I see or encounter that reminds me and takes me back. More often than not, it like cruising along down the freeway, barely paying attention to the road, and then this giant wall drops out of the sky two feet from your bumper.

I almost rather they arise from something that's in front of me, rather than some nerve ending that's still living back in '98 firing off this memory that lays seige upon my train of thought. Personally, I find it a little distracting when I'm paying attention to something at work, and then a second later I'm in my old apartment humping some coed so hard that the mattress slides off the frame. Sometimes they're funny fond memories like that, and if I can I'll spend a few minutes wallowing in them like a Sunday morning. But almost as often, they take me back to scary or dark moments.

I guess when it happens at work or in the middle of something, I can usually brush them aside. The worst is when I'm at home cooking or reading and something really disturbing lodges itself in the forefront of my mind. It's kind of like my life is on Calico Vision and some fucker with A.D.D. just pushed the lever. CLICK and I'm plopped down in the middle of some fucked up situation from years ago. Since I'm alone, I have nothing to distract me from it, and I am forced to evaluate it. Why? How? What does it say about me?

A lot of people say you shouldn't relive your past. That doing so somehow means your life now isn't as good as it was, and that's a reflection on you; specifically what a big loser you are. But what if you think you're life's better than it was? I mean, if you don't have a memory of what it used to be, what the hell do you have to be happy about?

I used to be one of those people who said they'd lived their lives without any regret. Then I realized I was just bullshitting myself. If you don't suffer regret, at least momentarily, then you're saying you've never fucked up. Never lost anything of your own fault. And those same people will defend their argument by saying in the end they don't regret making those mistakes, because they learned from them and now bear no regret. Bullshit. The fact that you fucked up once doesn't disappear, the consequences don't flitter away like dandelion pollen on a warm breeze bitch; just because there was a happy ending to that very special episode in this sitcom you've set up for yourself. If you look hard enough, the regret is there, because that's what keeps you from ever making that same mistake again.