one fell swoop

I have never been one for amputating people out of my life. However much a relationship has atrophied, or whatever damage it causes to the rest of me, they remain attached to me – a disease-ridden lifeless stump.

It is a strange relationship that I have towards them. More grounded in a stubborn optimism than in reality. A detached belief that a one-way, un-reciprocated relationship, is still a relationship, and that somehow through sheer force of will, I can make something unhealthy whole again.

I have tried to make things platonic when even a stranger would recognize that it wasn’t. I have extended loyalties that would be gladly accepted but never returned. And I have given and invested of myself in what in today’s economic age we would call “sub-prime.”

The process of growing up, is in many ways like coming out of a thick fog. When looking back you realize much of the things you saw were in your imagination. The way the “scary” scenes in a Disney movie can be terrifying as a child and looks so utterly harmless when you’re an adult. Maybe it’s because we slowly acquire the capacity to process our surroundings, and it’s the unknown that is what is so frightening. We’re only afraid because we don’t understand.

Coming “out of the fog” I am still struggling to understand some of the things that have happened in my life. And in the process, I realize how much baggage I insist on carrying. And in one fell swoop, they seem to be falling away – all in the span of a mere few weeks.

The is the prince you kiss, and realize it’s really a toad. Coming to a realize that not all friendships are made to endure. That even if everything comes out in the open, it doesn’t mean things need to go back to the way they were. And if it doesn’t – that’s okay too. That there also comes a time to lay down the line with anyone that tries to dictate your life – and yes, even parents have manipulative and unstable tendencies.

In the course of this month, I have had my heart broken more times than I care to count – but perhaps the miracle is that there always seems to be a piece left – however small to re-grow.

This month I’ve learned that I need to start listening to myself. That I can’t keep punishing my body the way I’ve been doing – the excessive stress, the strain of constantly being hurt, and overcoming obstacles is not always about sheer willpower. Sometimes how smoothly and unfrazzled you wind up, can be equally as important as surviving the thing altogether.

I’ve also learned that resentment really is like drinking arsenic and waiting for the person you’re angry with to suffer. That sometimes silence is not only a more appropriate but more potent response. That people need to earn and maintain a reason to stay in your life, and shouldn’t always be excused.

In one fell swoop, I have swept up the bad, the hurtful and the bitter up in a cloud of debris. The changes don’t feel quite right – but one of these days, it will.