The Eleventh Hour

The Eleventh Hour

“When remorse awakens guilt,

Whether it be in one’s youth,

Or in the twilight of one’s life,

It does so always at the eleventh hour.”

-from Provocations, by Soren Kierkegaard

For many years I’ve lived with guilt for causing so much pain. Not only did I somehow manage to rip apart a marriage because I wasn’t strong enough to handle my own problems as a child, but I’ve hurt so many close friends along the way. I think the stronger I strive to be, the more defiant and selfish I become. The transitory battle to get my latent body off the ground and fighting for something always ends in casualties. Butchered feelings, severed relationships, shards of broken memories left in the dust for no one to touch again. “I was seized by remorse and the sense of guilt, which hurried me away to a hell of intense tortures, such as no language can describe” (Frankenstein, Mary Shelley, p. 94).

I’m always laden with guilt when I’m at my lowest, as if some cruel hand of fate were taunting me still. Sometimes, in all of this, I get completely lost in the smallest things, as if I really had a life worth living. “She is color-mad: brown rocks, yellow sand, gray moss, green foliage, blue sky; the pearl of the dawn, the purple shadows on the mountains, the golden islands floating in crimson seas at sunset, the pallid moon sailing through the shredded cloud-rack, the star-jewels glittering in the wastes of space--none of them is of any practical value, so far as I can see, but because they have color and majesty, that is enough for her, and she loses her mind over them” (The Diaries of Adam and Eve, Mark Twain, p. 159-161). It’s always in the eleventh hour of a commensurate end that I find myself mesmerized at all the beauty and ardor of life surrounding me. The point, I think, is that we must continue to chase the beauty, the incredible wonder and awe immersed into ordinary lives. The point is to live and get what happiness we can each day. “Even if you are on the right track, you will get run over if you just sit there” (The Complete Book of Zingers, Croft M. Pentz, p. 159).

*This is an excerpt from a segmented essay I am currently writing. I especially love the quote I used from "The Diaries of Adam and Eve," which by the way, everyone should read. It's humorous and satirical and just brilliantly written, and it's pretty short. I write for myself, but others seem to enjoy my work so I figured I'd post a little bit of it here. It definitely needs some work though. :)