Lessons

Today has been a mental storm of melancholy, restlessness and anxiety. But most of all, I can't help feeling that I've failed a friend because I keep on forgetting the one thing I mean to remember.

I've learned over and over, ad infinitum, to get out of my own head and to approach a person with love and kindness. It's a hard lesson to relearn, especially when it's so much easier to be weak and pretend that someone is just being an asshole or a jerk. It's so tough for me to recognize that perhaps there is something deeper going on, and to come out and say something or just be a kind person. Sure, that doesn't excuse some behaviour. But it also doesn't excuse my indifference, especially when the person in question is a close friend.

{pregnant pause for effect}

So perhaps by putting this out there, I'll make concrete this abstract lesson. Perhaps it's my Dark Tower, and I am the gunslinger...making my way across the desert in pursuit of the Man in Black.