Saying things

I'm not gonna preface this. So much has happened, and I can maybe get to talking more about it if I can get myself up off the floor, so to speak.

I'm writing from a place where all the good things in my life lately got started. Incidentally, this place I'm in is very cold, like it was when everything started. At the time, it was winter, just like it is now, and colder than I'd been used to in a long time, which...though now a metaphor, is also true. Right now, this place feels cold and empty, even though it's that same place I found warm and homey before.

A lot changes because you look at it differently. A lot of people and how they are in your head is the labels you apply to them. At least sometimes. I feel like I always have to defend myself, and explain that that's not actually always true, because terrible things just happen to people and people can legitimately be horrible and awful. And that while I think that the answer for me is crawling out of the hole I've somehow not realized how deep I'd been digging, spade in my own damn hand when i thought I was laying foundation instead, that doesn't mean that people don't find themselves in holes they didn't make, or holes they legitimately can't just climb out of.

The problem is pretty words and dreams. All your pretty words fall flat if there's no reality behind them. All your pretty dreams, flower petals and soft glow of candlelight and precious moments staged just so--it's all a facade unless there's more than that moment and that  dream.

We all say we want better, but when do we do better? We say we hate the way things are, but are we out there actively railing or changing it? We say we see monsters, but we don't look in the mirror and see when we're the monster ourselves.

We say it's cold and dark and we're afraid, but why are we then running from the warm and light of our loved ones? Why are we pushing them away?

The house is dirty, the chores aren't done, the work is piling up. We're buried underneath it. Are we? Or are we, again, the ones holding the shovel flaccidly in our own hands unwilling to pick it up and dig out?

But no one taught us to dig, right? We don't know how. The answers seem hard. It feels like digging will break us, tear our flesh from our bones, make us different and worse. It feels like we were perfectly fine without digging, thank you, and would rather not make our muscles ache and our body wear down right now. We'd rather rest.

We're lost, but we simply couldn't stop to ask for help.

Now, we're just lost and treading water, because what are you going to do if you'll never admit you need someone to show you the way? And when you've also turned away from the light and warm, then how do you find anyone to show you how to dig, now that you've realized you're just an idiot who didn't want to get dirt on their pretty little sweater and their brand new boots.

The thing about screwups is admitting that you screwed up isn't enough. Maybe for two seconds it makes you feel like you did something, but really...then what.
Just because you didn't mean to hurt anyone doesn't mean you didn't.
Just because you have good intentions doesn't mean you haven't overstepped your boundaries.
Just because you wanted to help doesn't mean that you did.
Just because you wished it would be different doesn't change it.

We are men of action, lies do not become us. It's a great line from a great movie, and an even greater book, whose author actually did something, and told a beautiful story, and worked hard.

It's time to dig.