TheBanyanTree: Unce upon a life ago

[mg]

I went to see a concert with my mom, et al.  Comprised of a mother who was
both mother and father, a man who wasn't a father but would have been the
best one to have had and a man who is my love but isn't enamored of me in
the way I thought I'd have at this stage of my life but who is the best fit
in every other way.  Et al. was an eclectic group of people who all love
me.  And love me.  Et al.

I saw, some twenty years after seeing them previously and also the first
concert of my life, Manheim Steamroller.  They played many pieces from
albums, or CDs these days, that I have but have not played in years now.  As
we sat in the sudden dimming light they began to play music I raised two
boys to; music I mopped floors, scrubbed toilets and wiled away many hours
by myself to and I was, simply, overwhelmed.  Suppers many years back
cooked, consumed and cleaned up after; laundry which would now be relics if
still around, washed; lingering gazes into tiny fenced back yards which
spanned limitless miles in my head long since faded to black and gone the
way of memory yet resurrected in a breath.  Memories which may seem more
real now than when they were live and in technicolor.  The floodgates didn't
open so much as they groaned and then crashed under a burden of emotion much
more powerful than any mere Atlas could muster the strength to hold back.  I
was engulfed.

I used to gaze out the window and think about a life I'd have had, had I not
had the one I was in.   I never wondered what I'd have gazed out the window
and thought I'd have had, had I had the other one instead.

You can't have two.

Maria