“Few delights can equal the mere presence of one whom we trust utterly.” ~George MacDonald
I keep a list of lessons I’ve learned in a moleskine notebook. It’s full of really excellent advice like why one shouldn’t forget to put their car registration in their car or why one shouldn’t pretend to be over 21 to purchase alchohol when they are only 20 and my personal favorite: When walking around on grass, watch out for dog shit. I think so many people would find that last one oh so handy. But for me it’s a terrible memory of a time I stepped in dog poop on my way to the school bus. I must have been 12 or 13 and later that afternoon I was making my first trip to a ‘friend’s’ house – a word I put in quotes because she turned out to be an evil heinous bitch but that’s a story for later or when I’m not still bitter. She was one of the popular girls and I spent years fawning over her trying like mad to get her to be my friend. I wanted her to like me and that there is a lesson in itself: If people don’t like you move the hell on. Don’t get on your knees and hope that blowing them will get them to like you. It won’t. Regardless, I stepped in dog poop and she subsequently made fun of me for it. The strange thing is that over a decade later it is one of those days when I can tell you exactly what I was wearing. Forever etched in my memory as the highpoint of my groveling days.
The worst lessons to learn are those that involve realizing that trust is an issue. It’s an issue with everyone but the second you find that someone is untrustworthy it’s like a 2×4 to the head. Though worse because it’s to the heart. And we all know that mending an injured heart is one of the most impossible feats known to man. We can walk on the moon but to this day no one has figured out how to fix a broken heart. And it’s like as an adult we should know better because with age comes automatic wisdom which is why adults are so fucking brilliant, right? Adults are just big third graders with more money and more anger. They do just the same things that Middle Schoolers but without parental supervision.
The more I contemplate how adults compare to children the more I get that feeling in my heart as it sinks down to the pit of my stomach. The difference I suppose is that adults are more aware and calculating of what they do and what they say. They aren’t cruel because they know better but instead because they know that no one can or will stop them. They mask things under the guise of ‘concern’ and they are a prickly, mercurial bunch hence the overwhelming cynicism in this world.
Of course there are a few good eggs but you really have to search them out but if you’re lucky you’ll happen upon one when you most need it. Though the hurt and heartbreak that comes from finding out the truth about your peers is more overwhelming and damaging than finding out that Santa, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy do not exist. And time? That which heals all wounds? Well there isn’t enough time in the world to heal that kind of break.
That’s the hardest lesson of all.
Unspeakable
“Sometimes I wish I were a little kid again, skinned knees are easier to fix than broken hearts.” ~Author Unknown
Casey got inside of my head and found exactly what I had been thinking; How does a beautiful, happy couple move on after an unspeakable loss? Is that even possible? Everything that once was now isn’t and what was par for the course last Friday isn’t anymore. Or maybe I’m just not strong enough to go through something like that without collapsing myself. In fact, I KNOW that I’m not strong enough to go through losing my (hypothetical) child because it’s not natural. It shouldn’t happen and again, I must repeat, we can find cures to illnesses and make vaccines for everything and we can fix physical heart ailments with a transplant or a surgery but when it’s broken – almost beyond repair – it makes me angry to wonder why the fuck no one can fix that.