Working on It

Sat down to write to see what would come out.

React. How to? Make it personal or make it bigger? A God? I've mostly thought yes when I haven't been thinking no and then there's this man telling me that there has to be one and that we don't have a choice but to choose God. And I'm thinking about my other choices, even if this makes my life more complicated and I have to think or drink, sometimes.

To see true sadness. It's not something one sees every day. True--as in not feigned or because one thinks it is the right thing to do at the time. Or because one is bored or one wants attention. True--as in the kind of sadness that makes a person alive. The other side of numb, the opposite of depressed.

Before the service and on the way to drop the children Aidan asked, "Why do people die?" "For lots of reasons. Sometimes people are sick. Sometimes other reasons," I said. We didn't talk about why people kill themselves. She's only almost four--and I was tired, hot, sad. Though I know she'll ask some day and I'd like to provide an answer that doesn't involve God being the only choice. So I'm working on it.

Working on it. Not afraid or ashamed to say that I'm working on it without God. Which means looking for incongruity, the grey, the grapple. Not going to do it alone, either. Going to do it, life, with the people I love.

The people I love.