I look over my shoulder at the trail heavily trodden and the narrow strip of grass I’ve tended, like a road reaching back to another life. A road winding between the introspective, selfish, closed, non-reflective, expansive, empathetic, compassionate, and giving that serve merely as signposts that were ignored because it’s easy to care only for yourself and difficult to think of others when the rewards of the universe are inverse to the effort expended. And the view from that road, like outward thinking, gives meaning to life while the inward is a downward spiral full of ruminations that, someone of my age looking back on the decisions made and how they could have been different, expose regrets that shaped further choices only to compound and fold in on themselves (as if the choices were animated!), just to acknowledge that all choices lead back around to here.