Broken Glass, or A Mobile Mosaic

No matter how far you've walked, there will always be an infinity left before you.

When you put it out there without context, it almost sounds poetic. Like a song about the never-ending road, or something. If you put it in the context of knowledge, it can be exciting.

But when you realize that as far as you've come from the immaturity of fourteen years, when you technically had empathy but the critical thinking skills of a sea-slug... as far as you've come from the years of teenage depression and angst, where you were pretty sure the world would end when you did... as far as you've come from the years of anarchism at eighteen, where you were caught up in a daydream and failed to notice reality spinning out of control around you...

As many years as I put between myself and my last failure, there will always be a worse disaster around the corner. For example, taking your friends for granted. Arrogance and self-centered thoughtless pontificating. Rampant egoism. Taking your friends for granted. Being disparaging about things that people close to you hold sacred (while somehow simultaneously whining when others do the same).

I can go on all night about how I didn't mean to, I didn't think, I didn't expect, I didn't realize, but in the end, the fact of the matter is, I took one of my closest friends for granted, and was high-handed and arrogant, disparaging his belief system, behind his back.

Rereading it, the whole piece was a helluva lot more angry than I remembered it - all under the surface, I think, bursting out, and I didn't even notice. That says more than I'm comfortable with about my state of mind - that I could be ranting about one of my best friends without even realizing? Disturbing. For all my clatter about communication, and keeping open the lines, and being honest, I'd really not been honest with him. Or even myself.

The dualism remains, really. I find myself torn, in the inevitable human struggle, between spirituality and skepticism. Astronomy versus Astrology; Spirituality versus Science; Cold Hard Facts, thrown up against the great and unexplainable mysteries of the universe. The green world and the white one - viriditas. Ka. But it's a struggle that can certainly be lived out without attacking one's fellow man. We can't judge our progress along life against each other - it's like measuring the growth of a tree by the speed of a river. Something is fundamentally off.

But aside from that, I am, beyond all hope and certainly beyond all reason, forgiven for my trespasses. If I can, perhaps, forgive myself... it is doubtful. In all likelihood this will be added to the deep, dark pit of things buried deep and far and hidden, moments wherein I learned something about myself that I wish I had not. Moments wherein I hurt the people I care most about, and beyond any rationale I can see, they manage to not cast me aside like the rusty, mostly-broken blade I am.

(Forgive me; if I'm talking in weird circles, it's because I can't look at this directly, or it will overcome me. But there is the sin, and so I must address it, however obliquely. And swallow the sword; and move on.)

My little sister's best friend Ashley is eighteen today. Or yesterday, but the party is at our house today. As designated Responsible Adult, I'm here as a chaperone, to keep an eye on them and make sure nothing goes too horribly awry. (There are about ten kids here, ages ranging from 15, youngest, to 18, oldest-turning. I am not sure my job is a possible one.)

They're currently sprinting back and forth around the yard. Why? I do not know.

Still, happy birthday to her-- she is a sweet kid and very much like a little sister to me.