Exile

A few years ago I visited an old people's home. There was an old Italian lady there who looked a bit distressed and was having a conversation in her native tongue. Trouble was no one understood a word she said and she was left talking to herself.

Reality hit me. In years to come that would be me. Sitting in a nursing home muttering to myself in this foreign country. I have put myself in this position by the choices I have made. My life and new family are here now. I am happy. But the niggling feeling remains that I have put myself into a self imposed exile. There is no leaving now!

Dipping my feet in the ocean of the past.

Memories come like waves. Ebbing at the shores of my dreams, they come calmly sometimes and with a torrent at others.
I am restless trying to piece together a few fragments of what seem like disjointed chapters in my life.
The memories come. I beat myself about them and then feel the need to be guilty about that. But there are blanks. Little blanks where I want to join a part of the afternoon to the rest of the day. I struggle only to be left distressed.
What is it that makes me stand at the edge and look at only the rough seas?Why cant I see the shifting sand under my feet?