Steady Ground

I close my eyes. I am six years old. Sailing atop my bed – the deep, rich, empty universe, my blanket. Waves crash from starboard and my bedroom door opens. The steady and warm rays of the sun trickle in. My sun. Growing up, that’s who they were to me. My mothers. One, the center of my universe, and the warmth of my life. The other, a distant star. Decidedly out of reach. But always a guiding light… 

I asked Mom why Mamma was the way she was. “Your Mamma… is a paradox. The more you try to understand her, the more questions she leaves you with. But know that she loves you.” She paused. Thinking, for a moment, before smiling. “You’ll understand when you’re older.” 

As you grow older, you get to experience certain shifts in the way you think about the world and your place in it. A shift in the way you connect with the people you call your home. Your take on things becomes jaded. Pessimistic. Or is it… realistic?

With age, comes wisdom. You lose track of where you placed your rose-tinted glasses. Somewhere along the way, you were willing to take them off and toss them away. Somewhere between admiring your heroes and watching them fall from the pedestal you place them on. A single action, a wayward “no offense but…”, a certain lack of empathy, and your entire foundation starts to quiver. Then to shake. Until there is nothing left but flattened concrete and rubble. And you’re left standing there, grasping at how your reality got so twisted, and tangled, and disturbed.

And once you’ve grown into your skin, you learn that you alone are responsible. For your choices, for your admiration, and for your actions. You are the captain of your vessel in this tumultuous sea. And it is your duty to moor it to steady ground. The heroes you worshiped, and the ones you aspired to be like, will end up disappointing you. And when that time arrives, you will lose them. What will you do then? Where will you go when you have no one to look up to? 

There is only one choice left.

Look within yourself. Face your reality. And move forward.

-          X