I don't want to make lemonade, I don't want want silver clouds or fish in the sea, I don't want lights or tunnels or anything. I just want the tears to stop.
I thought it was supposed to change. I thought those days were over, new days ahead. It wasn't like I was naive and thought that happiness and joy would follow me all the rest of my days, but I didn't think pain would come this soon, this fast.
About a year ago I was moving a huge bookshelf on wheels down to a van to be loaded up. As it rolled down the sidewalk I noticed one of the wheels was about to fall off the curb. Without thinking I stepped to the side that would fall to catch it. The bookshelf, filled with books and easily outweighing me by 200 pounds, fell square onto my shin and scraped its way down to my foot. Nothing was broken but the next day all the damaged tissue, with the help of gravity, dropped into my foot, turning it into a purple, grody balloon. That was almost exactly one year ago. My shin is still tender where it hit. When I touch it I can still feel damaged tissue. Maybe it will always be that way. Maybe my emotional wounds will never heal. Maybe my heart will forevermore be tender to the touch, fragile and prone to re-injury.
I have always tried to learn from my mistakes, to become a better version of myself. But maybe that's not enough. A mistake is still a failure, even in the past. And my past failures haunt me. That's the difference about the present and the past. The present is always changing, it's liquid, constantly taking shape, growing pulsing. The past is rigid, cold, unalterable and constant. Like barbed wire my past wraps around me, cutting in to the vulnerable, unhealed places of my soul.
And then the tears flow again.
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