Before they Wake

Recently realized that the problem is bigger than I am. Bigger than his choosing to use or not to use. Bigger than her returning to a desperate situation, three innocent bystanders in hand and tow. It is as big as the current generation and past generations and future.

It is silence. It is shame. It is approval and disapproval. It is about being who you think they want you to be instead of who you should be. It is about adherence to rigid dogma, difficult to reconcile in context of this greater world. It is about repressed passion, and a need to cast off the ugly cloak of religion in exchange for spirituality.

The irony is that they--with their make-believe attachment to tolerance--have allowed me to become me. And that which I despise about their silence, inability to act is the core of my creation. So when I get angry and rail against them and their beliefs, their determination to let things be, I realize that I rage against the powers that made me.

I hereby give myself permission to stop living in both worlds. Straddling no more.

An epiphanic moment that day on the phone with the therapist from McLean. An understanding that the problem is beyond the scope of me, and perhaps beyond the scope of them. The answer seems to be to live. To ache. To create.

Take back the night. Before they wake. It is the best that I can do.