Personal Journal

Afterthoughts

So as I drove hither and yon yesterday after abandoning Jean to her tears in the garage, I listened to a lot of music. Sting.

Why should I cry for you…

This mood – this void of emotion, where my rational brain finds itself straining against the massive weight of freefalling emotion – down, down, to nowhere. Not even sadness will it stop beside, far far down. Up above, the tether to my mind, which nods in sympathy and understanding.

“This is bigger than any of us” it says. “This is not something we can do anything about, but only choose paths away from, when and if we become ready.”

I feel the sobbing seeping out through the car cabin, hear the volume increase as I shut the garage door on her to protect her from prying eyes, and from anything she’s pulling from me.

I am Pontius Pilate, washing my hands of the act I’ve committed. This is her choice, to despair, to hurl herself into a chasm from which no one can even see her, let alone reach. And I am going with, because I have no choice in the matter. She grieves. I am the catalyst of this darkly burning flame, and I burn from the spark that I wrought unwittingly.

This is what she wants, or is it who she is, what she is.
A vacuous soul that upon seeing the portal enclosing it, thrusts the portal open sucking in anything around it, unsuspecting innocents (no, I am not innocent, but this is beyond the crime I committed).

Why? Why?
Why does this emptiness fill you, woman?
“Leave you with your misery, a friend who won’t betray” (McLachlan)

The jury of my selves watches the courtroom drama sharing mass confusion. Shrieking and wailing fills the chamber, the Jury wishes to rule in favor of the defendant and redress this awful grievance that their I created. And yet, there is no way of knowing what Justice can provide in this case. Sympathetic, yes first to her, but also to me impartial between them both.

Why should I fall after her? I care. But there is no profit to be had in her wallowing in this the way she does; their might be if she were sinister, enjoyed knowing I hurt for hurting her, but she does not, and my pain is not my pennance. It is the pain of this chain reaction that I cannot know how to stop unless – even if I did turn my back and walk away, I would still hurt.

I don’t have to follow her down. I could let her go. Why is that unthinkable?
The self holds its hands together, patting fingertips upon fingertips in contemplation.
“I do not yet know”

Is it possible to be wrong and innocent of the intent to do wrong? I think so. Should that not mitigate? Again, I think so. For me, it would.
For her, it does not.

Air and water not to touch. To clash for the limits of self against the other.
I hear it, far away in the recess of the mind, a hunter recognizing wounded prey, or predator, perhaps, craving to end suffering. To put her down, say a prayer, accept the balance of nature as something beautiful and horrible upon its need, and to resume the solitary existence within the greater force.

To be guilty is not to be humble, nor humbled. It is to suffer.

I feel no closure, and anticipate none.

It is never too late to be what you might have been. -- George Eliot
Courage to start and willingness to keep everlasting at it are the requisites for success. -- Alonzo Newton Benn


It is never too late to be what you might have been. -- George Eliot
Courage to start and willingness to keep everlasting at it are the requisites for success. -- Alonzo Newton Benn