I Chose

We do it to ourselves, you know. We immediately want to blame someone else. It is so easy. Surely it is their fault. Their self-centered ways, their lack of giving a damn about how we feel, their assumptions that only account for themselves. We want to blame them. We do blame them?

It is ours though, your’s and mine. Our mistake. Our assumption. Our lack of action. Our demons. Our weakness. That weakness. You know the one. I certainly know mine. I can’t name it. I can’t place my finger on it without something being not quite correct. But I catch it’s eye. I look it in the eye, and I recognize what is mine. So I push it away. We push it away because we aren’t sure how to kill it. If you can’t name it, how do you remove its power? If you only know it in general terms, how do you use anything except general weapons?

So we do what we know. We push it away. I push it away. I don’t blame anyone else. My weakness is mine and I place it on no one else’s head.

And that used to be enough. Perhaps it still is for you. It is no longer for me. For now I know this thing has simply fallen back for the day and will be back for me later. Not soon, no. It will be months, perhaps years, but it will show up. It will try to hide as nothing, as it always has. But I will look it in the eye and know its purpose. It is an old dance we do. An ancient dance. I am tired of dancing. But I have always danced. Dancing is all I know, all that I know works. So I dance. You dance. We dance the dance that wins us the battle, but we have not won the war. We do not know how. I know you do not know how. If you did, you would not dance.

But you dance, and I dance with this thing I cannot name. I have tried, you understand… to stop the dance. To destroy what keeps coming back. But I have not. It returns less often. It returns with less effect. But the bottom line is that it returns. The bottom line is that it still ruins my day.

But my choices are my own. My failures and successes of my own device. And today, as I will do until I find a way to win, I chose again that thing that does not bring final resolution.

Today I chose to dance.

We choose our joys and sorrows long before we experience them.
~ Kahlil Gibran