Some things burn and some things ache. You can tell a story about two souls and tell the stories you want to believe or you can just go a different direction because you did all that could be done.
You put your best effort in or so you have tried to convince yourself, hoping that you’ll find the magic word(s) that help you let go of regret and self recrimination.
Sometimes You Must Bend Or Be Broken
I can’t remember the last time I screamed myself awake, but I know it is within the last year or so and I know why.
“Mama they tried to break me” flowed in a soft whisper lined with hard edges.
I was grateful that I was alone because the scream was joined by my flinging the covers off, simultaneously throwing myself out of bed.
For a moment I stood in the corner searching in the darkness for the intruder I was sure was in the house.
It might have been ugly but the sound of my breathing and the soft sound of the rain wiped the sleep from my eyes and I was awake.
It probably took less than five seconds, if that, for me to recognize exactly where I was and figure out all was fine.
“Mama they tried to break me, but I refuse to be broken.”
There will always be experts who will tell you how to parent and who will accuse you of being a bad father.
Given certain situations and circumstances they may even find opportunity to take the simple situation and twist it up like some sort of crazy balloon animal.
Even if you have no reason to feel judged or to be concerned about whether they have mischaracterized events there are moments when you’ll sit in a dark room and review what you know to be true because you don’t want to miss a thing.
Because you can play the fool in many situations but not this time and not in this particular one.
That’s when you find yourself wandering through the dark corners, places and spaces you might otherwise avoid because you need your clarity.
The thing is when you do so you must always be honest that you are not running from trouble but towards it because swinging your fists provides a certain satisfaction that is hard to find elsewhere.
If you don’t bend you might break but then again you might force the other to bend and cause them to fear being broken.
And if you do maybe, just maybe you’ll have found a different solution than you might have otherwise found or so the theory goes.
The thing is you can’t know or so for certain whether the theory leads to fact because it is just a…theory.
Right Or Left
The phone rang and the news reminded me about the impact of the choices we make and I had to take an extra deep breath to keep the flames from shooting from between my lips.
Funny thing is it didn’t stop laser beams from flying from my eyes and frying the fool in the full size pickup who did the typical Texas lane change.
You know the last minute, no signal and no room but I am going to force my way in move anyway.
Now I could have gone right or I could have gone left but I chose to go straight.
Not because of anger and not because of joy but because it was the direction I was heading and there was no need to veer from the path.
I had come too far not to push on and see where it leads, maybe far away or maybe just a moss covered stone to sit and think upon.
****
Words said in anger sometimes carry more truth than we like to admit.
But sometimes they are necessary because it is the only way the truth is not just spoken but heard.
