A melancholy portrait

As the world tends downwards, and as sin hinders love, a secret sorrow deepens in the heart of a woman. Regrets build up as the years go by - "Why did I date that boy in college? Why didn't I pursue that dream I once had? Why didn't I use my time more wisely when I had more of it? Why didn't I take life seriously when I was younger instead of letting its burdens and responsibilities catch me unawares? Why did I stop reading great books or listening to great music?", and so on - and the walls and the roof of her future close in ominously. Vision narrows, and hope fades. While she knows she has a good life and is doing good things for the people she loves, she has resigned herself to a lack of greatness. She goes through her days dutifully performing the tasks set before her, with an empty soul yearning for some great purpose. Having given up on ever fulfilling her dreams, she limits the scope of her goals and ambitions so that her regret might not come upon her so fiercely. She remembers the words she once heard - that the good is the eternal enemy of the best - but she remembers them in vain, because the good has already conquered. Step by careless step she has forsaken the best her whole life in favor of the good, the expected, the choices that make her family and community satisfied; step by reckless step she has abandoned the crazy single-minded devotion that could have made her life a shining witness to God's glory and power and changed the world. Step by selfish step she has chosen the easy and the accepted, and found too late that joy and fulfillment lay elsewhere. Is it any wonder that sadness dwells in the hidden mazes of her striving, longing, foolish heart?