This idea probably steps over that dreaded line, well into severely bad taste territory, but I’ve had a hard week. Sardonic humor helps. Sometimes.

I could list the litany of the insults to my serenity that managed to bust through the outside perimeter this week, but I won’t. My difficulties belong to me, and while each might hint an uncertain universality, you’ve got troubles of your own—many of which could easily dwarf the worst of mine. Leave it to say that I had a hard time crossing the bar to find safe harbor this week.

I suppose that I could harden my heart, become less vulnerable, but I have not yet. I don’t seem to be trending in that direction, either. So far, I’ve opened few boxes of rocks in my life. I can’t quite see how my anticipating rocks in any gift box could improve the quality of anyone’s experience, particularly my own. Weeks like this last one, though, strain my natural optimistic belief that this life might be a gift. This gift comes very well disguised sometimes.

I grieve, I suppose, for a certain naiveté, a hoop-skirted faith poorly suited to my frame or my attitude. I never was a little girl in any sense of the word, yet the world sometimes feigns a decent terrifying, and I have proven myself fully capable of scurrying toward whatever passes for a safe room, almost overcome with what anyone might mistake for a serious attack of the ‘vapors.’

I suppose I can hope for better without expecting worse. I want to move through the world in a more or less upright position rather than cringing in dread anticipation about anything. My forehead’s apparently there to absorb surprising slaps.

Some Saturdays, I wash up well-used on a rocky beach, uncertain of my next move. I suppose this might be nature’s way of restarting my aging operating system, purging a buffer or two, perhaps reawakening. So much of my life has proven to be a dream come true, I can’t credibly begrudge a nightmare or two, or three or four, thrown into the mix. My heart only feels broken. It continues ticking, beating on my temporarily weary chest from the inside right now.

©2014 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: Living