UNRAVELING

This has felt immensely heavy - and I'd like to get it off my chest. A great deal of knots have come undone around me - dear friends turned suddenly to loose ends. Relationships have broken and the beautiful ideas of them have pulled apart into unknown. Dear friends. Too many now. I feel shot through of holes by bullets punched through them.

There is so little that can be done.

I am unfamiliar with this theater - and I really don't have any lines. But somehow I know that of it I am a part. I care so deeply for these wonderful people - and it pains me to see what efforts they have made come to fail. And, more painfully so, what efforts others refuse to make. It's a balance. It's a circus act. It's toeing the line between comfort, motivation, empathy, and... most painfully... distance.

I have so few answers - and a darling little girl looking up to me.

And I don't know how to tell her that its really her who's comforting me - one imaginary coffee for dad. One for mom. She is the answer. She is the dream. For where the many strings around me have come free in divorce, separation, and pain I know what this little family means.

I love my friends with so much of my heart that their pain cuts me deep.

I love them like an extension of me.

But I can't break with them this time.

Dad has breakfast to make. Dad has Mom. Baby. Both sweet and kind and clinging to me as I too cling to them. So much is unraveling around us - but together we are three. Together we, small as could be, are a boundary I am unwilling to break.

But oh God my heart breaks for you - dear, dear friends. I just can't put you on your feet. I wish I could. There is not a world I can see without you, whatever your next future may be. I will give you what I can from this boundary - but it's not something I will risk losing.

I love you.

When given to the will of the ocean every ship ever built will be smashed upon the rocks or swallowed by the waves. Every plane falls from the sky.

And so it is with existence - we inevitably face the truth that we are required to take control of our little vessel called life. We are captains and pilots.

Ships really don’t right themselves. Grit your teeth, grab the ropes, and right your course. Whatever it takes.

When you're ready to start fighting the sea - call on me. I will give you what I can of me.