You are overwhelmed, tired, feeling like the walls are closing in and all you want to do is go… go for a drive and have time to think… Listen to music, angry, soft, loud, emotive, piercing, any music to calm the mindPod… but no. Your keys are in your hand. Your tank is full (well, sorta, you never can tell since you tend to run out when the gauge reads in the neighborhood of half tank), you have a little cash for snacks and a plan, or rather non-plan, but that is the plan, but no. None of it matters, you are fucking stuck. You can’t just go. Can’t go to your favorite breakfast place to read a book and people watch. Can’t just drive and sing loudly to the same song over and over because it is what you feel right that moment. Can’t spend the day hiking along the bluffs or go kidnap your best friend to get lunch somewhere he’s never been.You no longer have that option.
Sometimes its just like that…. you sit. With your head in your hands. You sit with your head in your hands because no matter how many reasons you can find to blame someone else, the choice that brought you to this place was yours. You put yourself on this stoop with your keys in your hand next to a vehicle that is completely unsafe to take more than 15 miles without AAA and telling everyone you care for where you’re going and which route you’re taking. You made a poor choice and it was not the first time, its just visible to more people than the rest have been.
Sometimes its just like that… the ripples in your pond- the decisions you’ve made, those choices you have found ways to put band-aids on and share blame with others; or pawn off on them completely, or better yet, decisions you’ve chosen to ignore all together…. those are making the ripples in your pond. They have started to clash into each other and make bigger ripples and even waves at this point. So much so that you can’t ignore the ripples and you can see those fucking waves from your stoop. The truth is reflecting back in a way that is certainly not as pretty as it was from the glassy pond…. but reality, you threw those fucking rocks, help or no, they left your hands before hitting the water. River rocks, giant stones, small pebbles, chunks of concrete, tar from the road… they all came from you and you have to feel the effect. You are responsible for the fact that all water sports have been suspended until further notice.
It’s time to to calm the water and bring it back to a glassy pond. Time to find the bluff that lets you look down at your reflection and forgive yourself because try as hard as you like… you can’t jump in and pull out what you threw in. You can’t undo the past. You can only forgive yourself and realize it will take work to calm the waters, to trust yourself to hold a skipping stone. It will take time to find the calm and face your reflection once more.
Sometimes… its like that… you must climb to the top of the bluff to find forgiveness. It is difficult and steep. It’s taken a long time to even get here… you’ve stopped a few times (even threw another pebble or two). But you are here now. The top of the bluff is within your reach. When you get there and see your reflection clear from the peace forgiveness brings, bring back the water sports… jump off the bluff on a sunny day, into the glassy water and make a new kind of ripple.
