nobody said it was easy

(Note from the Editrix: obviously, now, this is one of the entries that was written before the one posted on the 21st. Just FYI.)



come up to meet you, tell you I'm sorry
you don't know how lovely you are
I had to find you
tell you I need you
tell you I set you apart

Time to think is helping. The overthinking, not so much, but...I am doing my best to just be, and get out of my own way in this. It's not my best trait.



tell me your secrets
and ask me your questions
oh, let's go back to the start

It is helping, immeasurably, that I'm with people who are rolling with the punches far better than I am. It is helping me adapt, and return to that place of reliance and confidence.

running in circles
coming up tails
heads on a science apart

It's not helping the initial flinching fear to go away. That constant sense of waiting for the piano to fall.

What if this is the time one of them freaks out? What if this is the time one of them makes it worse? What if one of them is going to make another proclamation that's even more restrictive? What if this time I make ANOTHER mistake and EVERYTHING falls apart? What if--



nobody said it was easy
it's such a shame for us to part

I am beyond talented at dooming my future before I've ever lived it. It's not as facile a skill as it used to be--now, it takes me about five minutes to go from fine to utter destruction. It used to take me less than sixty seconds from 'here' to 'ball of radioactive glass'. As strange as this sounds, giving myself those five minutes before I figure we're all going to die is an improvement.

no one ever said it would be this hard
oh, take me back to the start

It also doesn't help that I'm a natural born pessimist, if not a dyed-in-the-wool nihilist. And, as far as that goes? Whoever said that if we expect the worst, we're never disappointed was wrong--I am frequently disappointed, even though the very worst didn't happen, because one or other of the stages before utter devastation was nearly as bad.



I was just guessing
at numbers and figures
pulling the puzzles apart

But...they know I'm a spiky fractured ball of issues. They know I bear the lion's share of the mistake in the first place, and they know why, and they accept. That is...an amazing balm on several still-unhealed spiritual wounds, you...you don't even know. I don't have the words, beyond that I am deeply, humbly grateful that I didn't destroy everything, that things didn't go to that ball of radioactive glass stage I so feared. They know that I caused the rift in the first place--but they're giving me the space needed to come back from it, and they are confident enough, secure enough, to admit they both bear a portion of the blame too. Responsibility all around, and how often does that happen?



questions of science
science and progress
do not speak as loud as my heart

Something even more astounding I learned tonight--I don't think I specifically mentioned, but this other heart, he's partnered. To one of the sweetest souls on the grid. And...she knows. She knows what happened, she knows how bad it got, and...she cares, too.

I don't know how I lucked into these marvelous, amazing people in my life.



tell me you love me
come back and haunt me--

I do know I finally found a coffeehouse with a decent-size cup of coffee.

running in circles
chasing our tails
coming back as we are

But, beyond that, I think I can relax back from DefCon 1. There's still work to do, there are still conversations to be had, there is still mending to be done, but...I think I can do it now.

I may still make mistakes, but I'm not viewing that, now, as an agonizing thing, just...human.



nobody said it was easy
no one ever said it would be so hard

Which is something I've been practicing for decades, but still feel I'm not that great at? Maybe everyone thinks that from time to time, though.



oh, and I rush to the start--
I'm going back to the start...

Maybe that's okay.

After all...if everyone's making it up as they go along...I don't feel quite so alone in all the flailing.

And when all else fails...return to Go. You won't always get the windfall every time, but you'll at least look back and know you made it around the board one more time.

That's not nothing. And some years, some months, some days...that's all we need.

(Pictures taken at the Ancient Ruins of Emerald Bay, Dove Goddess Romance Park, Brampton Island, Portals Coffee Shop and the Vintage Village in Verdigris. Lyrics are from Coldplay's The Scientist.)