December 18, 2015:

Eye lock on the dockside, my hands filled with ice cream, hers with beer, my brain filled with loyalty and consternation, hers with the movable party she's on with her mates. She smiles, I smile, and that's that. Except I feel the need to be true, to a relationship which fails definitively within just a few days of my homecoming.

Eye lock outside the pub, where I light up, and she lights up, and I have no loyalty to navigate. This time it's depression which intervenes, the voice which whispers I don't deserve this, or I'm not attractive enough for her, or I'd rather be alone.

These are the lost opportunities for adventure, the experiences you surrender from conflicting motives, the regretful memories you later swim around in as if they were water.

Where each lost experience is like a door that closed off a world. What universe would this be today if only...