Pottery and Patience

Every time Theo had some major assignment on The Cosby Show, he and Cockroach went looking for the Cliff Notes for it. Right now I'm experiencing times in my own life where I wish I had some Cliff Notes on how to proceed. It's amazing how many things we can buy that through some use can be figured out but come with very detailed User manuals, but the big things in our lives never do. Relationships (of any kind), sex, parenthood, living itself--no manuals, not even so much as a pamphlet. Life leaves us out here to mess it up as we go along.

A friend of mine is always reminding me that our life lessons are often at another's expense. We're out here leaving human collateral [damage] along the way, most times unintentionally. I feel like I've spent my entire life trying to sweep up the chipped parts of my person and stick them back in place. While I am a Super Woman, designer, seamstress, and living model of my cape, I am not a God and so I continue to engage, on occasion, in exercises in futility. Clay today, pounded by one, molded by another, fired up, painted, decorated, dropped, cracked, smoothed, bumped, shattered, glued together, and set back on the shelf for yet another go round. It's impossible to look the same after each encounter, impossible to find all the shards and dust particles a part of my original masterpiece. When necessary, it's up to me to break it up, melt it down, and start from scratch and creating my own new masterpiece, only to be changed again, and again, and again...

We usually focus on the ways our own lives have been affected by what others have done to us, rarely stopping to think about the tracks we've left on some ourselves. My own pain is easier to identify than the assumed pain, or even the talked about wounds, I've caused along the way. If 2 people of the same experience were put in a room and asked to paint it, the pictures wouldn't even resemble each other. How do 2 people who supped of the same nectar describe it as the essence of emotional nourishment and malnutrition simultaneously. One walks away with a broken heart and bloodshot eyes, while the other leaves with a distended belly in search of the next experience. How do you know through all the hurt when you're supposed to be each other's salve or simply walk away because you're best left to figure it out without cloudy judgment?

How often have I tried something new, buried something old beneath it and continued on like I was good? The problem with burying memories alive is that you never know when a desperate hand will break through the earth, grab your ankle and force you to stand still and confront it. But how long should I spend confronting and seeking closure? What the hell is closure anyway? Closure is about as elusive as the concept of true forgiveness (hindered by the assumption that it's even possible to forget something that negatively impacted my life). Is it another of those exercises in futility? Not sure I've ever been able to actively seek closure or if time just continued to move and the sting naturally lessened until it couldn't be felt anymore. I've loved several Hims, all differently in reason and intensity, but it's usually the last one that lingers until...the next one. And even then, there's still the occasional twinge of what if that creeps up to choke me. All those Hims are now fond memories, in most cases, lessons learned and a hearty laugh at myself (or good strong cry) for the silly decisions I've made with my heart in the past.

My future is staring me in my face and all I can see is the beauty of the encounters I've had in the past and what I want to take from them. Well, that's not all. I can also see where I tripped and allowed this piece of art to be mishandled, causing me fear in coming out of the glass to be handled again, potentially without care. Hey, anything can happen. I'm busy erring on the side of caution, heart turned off (a subconscious effort no less), not interested in being collateral damage again and taking some time to air my cape out on a clothesline in the sun.

Nobody ever said I had to move fearlessly, just that I keep moving. It may be alone for now but...

Watch me move.