He tells me a man knows how to reach out and ask for help and I nod my head not because I understand but because I think it will end the conversation.
His eyes narrow and I know he is trying to figure out if I am saying what he wants to hear or if I really mean it.
An almost imperceptible head nod lets me know I am free to go and I walk out the door not knowing what conclusion he drew.
It doesn’t matter to me because I have a short list of people I am willing to talk to and an even shorter list of who I’ll ask for help.
There are enough echoes and memories of that guy and those moments to know he wouldn’t have appreciated The Conversations We Ought To Have.
A mile wide independent streak and an unwillingness to give more than tiny pieces would have kept him from really getting it.
Had you asked him to speak with you about it he might have cited a song lyric or two like the one below.
Years later he’d look back and realize he had dabbled upon the edges of beginning to understand that song in a deeper and more meaningful way.
Because sometimes you don’t recognize the big moments or the really important people until they aren’t a big part of your life anymore.
Maybe it is because you are so intent on navigating that highway filled with broken heroes that you miss it.
The focal point shouldn’t be that you missed it/her/him but what happens once you realize what happened.
Do you take action to course correct or just shrug your shoulders and move on.
Together we could break this trap
That is one of the key lines to me, acknowledging two are greater than one and that when you find your north star you do something about it.
The Love You Make
I’d go back in time to the moment where he chastised me about asking for help and tell him I learned something.
I’d tell him as much as I want to go back and relive certain moments or redo certain choices part of me doesn’t want to.
It is the part that says look at me as I am now and understand I am a product of all of those experiences, the good and the bad.
The one that says I know how to accept a person for who they are and expects the same.
It is like Frost says, we love people and things for what and who they are, or something like that.
I like to see it as the beauty that comes from loving flaws and all. It is reality.
Reality is also what has slowed me down and tripped me up.
Because certain situations have arisen that have required my focus elsewhere and forced me to walk down some very dark paths.
If you allow me to geek out for a moment I’ll use a clip to further illustrate this particular thread of thought.
I didn’t ask for help.
I held the bridge.
I should have asked for help, but I didn’t and there were consequences.
Maybe the point is to change it from the conversations we ought to have to the conversations we must have.
If I have learned anything it is to not to watch, wait and wonder.
Maybe if I hadn’t held the bridge I would have figured that out earlier.
Sometimes people talk about Rumi, the Sufi mystic as if adding Sufi and Mystic adds power to what he said.
Not me, the real power comes from whether the words you speak or share reach the heart of the person you give them to.
The heart always understands things differently than the head.
Ask Bruce and he’ll tell you that two is greater than one.
Oh, can you show me.
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