Ruins

All around me are ruins. There are ruins that are from the present, there are ruins from the past. No matter which way I look, North, South, East, or West, there is nothing but ruins. I can’t see past all of the ruins. Some are stacked higher than others, while others are just the rocks at my feet. There are ruins from as far back as I can remember, and there are ruins from the most recent of times. Ruins from past civilizations are fun and exciting for some people to explore. The ruins that are left behind by people and relationships are a much different kind of ruin. The ruins from past civilizations are not personal and troubling, they are a reach into history to see how people lived and what their lifestyle was. Relationship ruins are much different, it is very personal, sometimes touching, sometimes traumatic, and a lot of in between places.

Personal ruins are a very difficult thing to sift through, most of the time it is done while the destruction is fresh and new. Sifting through the ruins can and will stir up a lot of emotions, some good, some bad. While sifting through them emotions will be stirred. Love, displeasure, fondness, aching, the list goes on. We all have ruins of some type, and sometimes those ruins are shared with others depending on the situation. No one set of ruins are exactly the same as another. There may be a lot of similarities but no two are the same, even if two people are walking through them together. The emotions, the memories will be different for those two individuals.

It is a tough sometimes haunting experience sifting through the rubble that is left behind. Most of the time you do it alone, and it brings back a sadness of what once was and will never be again. It may have been the most glorious palace, with marble columns and spiral staircases, manicured lawns, and all the pretty things about it. Once it is at your feet in tiny pieces there is not a way to rebuild it, you can try, but it will never be the same. The palace that was once the talk of the city, now lays just a pile of rocks and debris. The owners of this palace may not have seen the decay that was happening to it, or they may have and tried a patch job, or they could have just ignored it and said that’s okay, this palace will remain standing forever, it can weather any storm. To the outside world the palace still looks pristine and beautiful. It usually does until it implodes and is all laying on the ground. Then the whole city wants to know how and why this happened. It really doesn’t affect the city but they want to know, they want to go kicking around the ruins and see everything that is there. Everything that was destroyed, to see if anything is still in decent shape, to see if anything can be reused. It is none of their business what lies in the ruins. Ruins and rubble from our palaces are ours, no one else. They can be bulldozed flat so you can start to build again, or you can live in them and not rebuild anything. The rebuilding from the ruins sometimes never happens, it takes both parties that created the ruins to want to rebuild. Sometimes the rebuilding makes a better palace than what once stood there, sometimes rebuilding only lasts a short time and what is built is nothing like what once was, and sometimes the land is just bulldozed and nothing is ever built there ever again.

As I look at the ruins around me I see some barren land, I see some where there is just a tiny building, and I also see where the dust hasn’t settled from the implosion. When you sift through the ruins you tell yourself I should have done this, I should have done that. Hindsight and reflection only take you so far, because no matter what you look back and see, what you think you could have done differently, it wasn’t just dependent on you, there was and always will be other factors involved. While you think that if I would have done this, everything would have stayed perfect, you can never be sure of that because that would have changed the way that everything else flowed. The most important thing is to learn why the ruins happened in the first place, and try your best to prevent it from happening again.

Every time we go through our ruins, we pack a bag and pick up things to take with us to the next place we are going to try and build. Some bags are bigger than others, and some things can’t be helped but to packed. Everything that is laying there doesn’t have to get packed. A lot of us are hoarders and don’t want to throw anything away, so we pack everything we can stuff into the bag, and sometimes we call for more bags so we can take everything. When building and moving into the new palace a lot of times we hide these bags in the darkest corner of the basement, we don’t let anyone see them when we are moving. Either during the building of the palace or after it is standing tall and proud for everyone to see, our bag gets ripped open and spilled out. On occasion the things in our bag works it’s way into the foundation of the new palace, and it takes everyone working together to see if it ruins the foundation, or can be taken out and discarded because it is not needed or desired in the new place. But it takes working together and being on the same page about things. The important thing is that you only pack what has to be packed. Most people only want what is shiny and new, they don’t want their new palace built with a bunch of someones old ruins, and this is understandable.

As I sit among all of the ruins from all of my palaces I must now pack my bag. Decide what I must pack, and what to leave behind for the bulldozer to take away. This is always a sad time, for anybody that does this. In the past I have grabbed the biggest bag and hastily packed everything that I could get my hands on. It didn’t matter if it was still burning, how heavy it was, or if it was cracked and damaged beyond repair. I grabbed it and took it along with me to my next destination. Time has made me only a little wiser than I was many years ago. In that wisdom that I have gained, and most of it happened very recently, I now know that I must wait for the dust to settle from around the ruins before I pack my bag, That i don’t need the biggest bag i can find so I can put everything in it once again. Bigger isn’t always better, but that I need to grab a bag that is big enough so that it doesn’t break open and destroy anything else.

There is a lot of dust to settle from my ruins before I pack, I hope I can wait till it all settles before I even reach for the first thing to put in my bag. Only time will tell….