Shame is a tug on a tether

There is a knot that you can tug with your teeth, and pick at until each of your nails will peel from it's bed; you can Hate at it, and you drag yourself from the stake of it until your heels, and knees, and palms bleed, and it can never be undone that way.

We can not bear light by forever apologizing for the ills of yesterday, when each word would better be replaced with hope and aspiration for the coming hour. Shame is a dangerous concept. Only that. Grief and Fear, even Hate, Envy, Anger, or Regret are all commonly expressed maladies, while Shame is rather something that we keep in the heart in a way of secrecy. We bury it in the yard to try to forget it while the rain pours down on it through seasons that quickly turn into years, and all in that time it lies deep and festering.

What is it though? Is it regret, but much sicker than that? I find myself constantly transforming my mistakes into shame. Little things like being forgetful, or negligent. Really I am not either of those things, but simply less of the opposite of those things than some other people that I know. Once something is done (or not done in time) what can I actually DO in order to UNDO? Nothing. And what could I possibly DO or UNDO to change what I fear about another person's reaction? Nothing. So what I am left with is to stop withholding permission from myself to Let Go.

First World Problems

Your job and your love life.

I woke up this morning with a harmonica in my purse, in a house I hadn't recognized from the street in the dark.  Drunk friends think I either don't have the key, or that I don't know where I'm going.  But I am going here: Where mulling spices float and sink in brewing tea no more quickly than the melody of a cello from another room.

I reach into the farthest corners of the cabinets, past pint glasses, and stained coffee mugs, for the tea china. There is a pair of cups, and one without a mate. I serve the pair to my friends on the living room floor.  That room put me in secure suspension, as I play my part as an eyes-closed-witness to one of my favorite movements in the symphony of youth (Playing the subtlest snare in the rhythm section, but hey could you call your friend over here?): Falling in Love After Last-Call in an Altered State.