I keep waiting to be tried for my crimes against humanity. What crimes, you might ask? (I ask myself as well, in constant evaluation of my conscience and my behavior.)
Feeling feelings. Saying words. Asking questions. Daring to breathe and move, as if existence were a privilege I have not yet been fully granted. If I peep out of my hole, I will no doubt see my shadow, predict a millennium of curses, catastrophes, coldness, and disasters. Better to stay hidden, as if I were an abhorrence the world cannot bear to witness.
So I allow myself to retreat momentarily, knowing the fault does not lie in me, but in the people who instilled in me a deep sense of my own unfitness; to them, the people who were supposed to love me or the professionals who were supposed to help me, I was but a bitter taste, a putrid odor, best dissipated into nothingness.
I refuse and refuse again. And tomorrow I will rise better and stronger than ever. Assured of my grace and my character. Making meaning. Finding purpose in the continuing dance.
