a wish and a wasted star

this was supposed to be a positive post. in fact, for posterity (can't spell posterity without 'post'... mmmm...cereal...) i will still publish the post i meant to have here in it's entirety, because i like it, even if what i'm feeling now flies in contradiction to some of it's loftier ideals.

letting go of a grievance, of a grudge, is extremely difficult.
we become convinced, in our mind, that the weight is necessary, that without it, our gravity would be insufficient and we, now rendered insubstantial, would simply float into the inky blackness of oblivion. we become convinced that without the hard, impenetrable exterior, we would be easy targets for a world whose sharpest and deadliest arrows are often the ones that disguise themselves as love, forgiveness, and compassion, and that agaist such spears, we have only this one defense, so we must use it constantly.
this is not a "lie of the enemy". he speaks to us far less often than we like, in our self-importance, to believe.
this is not the "fallen nature of man", since man has only ever had one nature, and only fell as a diamond might fall from a setting, retaining it's worth despite the time spent off the master's hand.
no, this is simply something we tell ourselves to mask our fear, our insecurities, and our monumental pride. knowing that lovign everyone leaves us open to pain we don't think we deserve, we decide instead to build defenses against such pain, not realizing that these same defenses work with equal strength and vigor against that ability to love. But being terrified of "being hurt again", we close that door, padlock it, hammer some cartoonish boards over it, slide a fw end tables, a sofa, and the statue of liberty in front of it, and then, in one of the greatest contradictions known to humanity, sit patiently on the other side, waiting for someone to come through.
what would it look like if we simply dropped the burden? if we carried no biterness with us, would it be easier to go out into the world and make the lives of others less bitter as well? if we didn't have our huge, protective shell on, would we find that we could get closer to the shells of others, examine them for access, instead of simply bumping like fairground cars and veerign off in another direction altogether?
in this spirit, today, i examine the grudges in my life. whether warranted or not (and don't we all feel secretly vindicated by our ability to make them ALL feel warranted?) they have no place in the life i most want for myself.
i claim no strength above and beyond that available to any human. in fact, i often claim less. and i know that, while one or two of these heavy things might be manageable, the whole at once will overwhelm me. so for now, i take the coffee table away from the door, leaving the statue for a day when, after the exercise of moving a few more smaller pieces of furniture, my strength is up to the challenge.
still, without the reminder of that single injustice blocking the small window of my door, i can once more see the possibility of justice withuot taint, and its allure will, i pray, be too strong for me to ever fully conceal again.
these little bits of progress are not much, and i know that if someone wanted to come into my living room for a cup of tea, it would still be nigh on impossible, or would at least take desire enough to squeeze down the chimney and bear the soot and pain. but perhaps we can sign things to each other through the patch of glass i've cleared, and after my apologetic explanation, we might make an effort, together, at moving some of each other's burdens, and making space for others to come and share in the labor, and the reward.


there, that was hopeful, wasn't it?
and yet, today, all i have left at the moment is to ask the question "why is it the moment we're feeling good, about anything, a bunch of stupid things happen that take it all away from us?
all i wanted were a few simple things. i wanted my bike fixed, and after dropping 80 dollars into it, it still doesn't run the way i want... i've had to take it back to them twice today, and the problem persists. it's a simple, stupid thing, but all it would take to make me happy would be the proper functionality of something that people know how to fix, but fail in doing so.
i was supposed to be somewhere important today at 2:30. i was under the errant impression that i was supposed to be there at 3. so, i was bewhildered to arrive at the first destination at 2:30, thinking i had all kinds of time to get to the place i was supposed to go, only to learn that the person going with me had already left, seemingly without me.
so i proceeded to the final destination, and, arriving still at only 20 to 3, was further overwhelmed to find everyone gone.
distraught, now, and quite bereft of comfort, i called jerry, who was my friend, and supposed to be there with me, to help me through some of the processes that i completely didn't understand, having so seldom dealt with them.
instead of finding one miniscule scrap of compassion, i find instead accusation, a cool indifference that sounds very much like disappointment, and finally, some demands that, easy tasks for him, he decided instead to bequeath to me, even though i will find them much harder, and be rewarded less.
having been in a particularly emotional frame of mind this week already, i was crying by the time i got off the phone. not that he seemed to care at all, admonishing me that it was my fault, that i brought the consequences, so i should deal with them.
the fact that it was all just based on a stupid missunderstanding makes it worse... now, it will wreck a bunch more things in my week, add more stress to my life, and leave me feeling, i don't know, like somehow i failed, although it was so contrary to how i wanted things to go that you'd think people would see that, instead, would see the desire i wear instead of the failure tattooed underneath it. 10 stupid minutes cost me this. and i don't know why it's affecting me so, only that i wish i could have received ONE, just one, warm and kind word from the person that i was still getting over trusting to lead me through the process to which i was reluctantly resigned.
instead of feeling like i can fix things, now that everyone has already decided how they will view me, i feel stupid, mostly as a result of those perceptions, coupled with the desires and expectations in my heart that i never seem to manage to meet in any satisfactory way.
so, whatever. i'm sorry, i guess. i never intended to waste people's time, never intended to give them futher doubts about any particular segment of humanity simply by my fragile association.
i just wish that one time, someone might understand me.
but instead, i'm sure i'm only going to find further lack of it as i move to fix any of this.
jerry, you could have helped me. instead you slapped me in the face with your commentary. thanks for nothing.

so that's all i've really got to say today, except for one burning prayer, which i offer right now to anyone who might avail themselves to listen:
i pray, beyond my capacity, beyond my hope and faith in humanity its flaws, that somehow, starting with anyone willing, the world might become more about supporting people than pointing out their insecurities, that it might become more about saving people than abandoning them to fates they don't understand, that it might become more about compassion than regulation, that it might be, in short, a place where kindness and love flourish, and people won't ever feel the need to hide, to be ashamed, or embarrassed, or like they are failures, especially for relatively petty matters. let's encourage each other in this above all things, to be ourselves, and to know that it's a perfectly acceptable thing to be.