All this has happened before, and all of it will happen again

To quote Leoben. It has, and it will. I see the patterns.

I see myself moving forward. In time, in space. I catch glimpses of my progress in a shadow on the sidewalk. I notice the changes I've gone through, they're written on my face and audible in my voice. I look at the places I've been and the fucked up shit I've had to deal with, and I remember how I've been scarred and healed by all of it. And I think for a moment, one fleeting moment, that I am walking a line, straight as an arrow. I know deep down inside that I finally am on the path that I am supposed to be following. This uphill climb to the finish line, to a place I have never been.

Then things look eerily familiar once more, and I find myself right back where I started. The line is not a line at all. It is a circle. The surroundings differ, and the circumstances evolve. But as nice a dress it can flaunt to the prom, the situation happens again.

Perhaps that is the point. You walk your circle. You own it. And each time you come back to that point, you are supposed to do it better. Handle it with more grace and patience, with the wisdom to keep on your toes.

Maybe it isn't even a circle. Or maybe you get lots of interconnecting swirling loops. Maybe one day, you get it right and your circle breaks out into a line, arcing off into space. Maybe you think you got it right, but your trajectory is off and you're shot back through a long slow curve like a satellite, catapulted by the gravitational pull of a stupid mistake you didn't even know you'd made.

Am I alone in this? Does anyone else find themselves repeating? Or am I just a circular person? (Is that a fat joke?) Am I destined to a recycled life?