Every second. Every minute. Every hour and day and month and year. Every life. They happen exactly one time. You only get one shot.

We all know this. Awareness of this simple fact is always there, in our minds. At varying levels.

Sometimes this awareness lies buried below the mundane minutiae of living. Sometimes it's pushed aside as we play things safe. Sometimes, sometimes it's the most obvious and obnoxious thing in our lives, and it consumes our every thought and word and action.

There are so many things that I've missed. Opportunities that I've squandered. Chances that I've not taken. Feelings that I've denied. Hints that I've ignored.

Gone, forever. All of them. Time lost to its own passage.

Not again, I tell myself.

I'll take that chance, I promise myself.

We'll see, I suppose.

It's all coming together. Everything that I ever wanted and dreaded and wished for and needed and craved and feared - it's all going to happen. There will come a time when I'll have to either act, or not. Say something, or not. Do something, or not.

And that second, when I have to decide, when I'm once again given an opportunity to take that chance that I haven't taken, so many times, that second will pass quickly into the past with all its brethren.

That moment in time will happen once, and then it will be gone forever.

I wonder what I'll do, during that precious second.