It Started With…

It started with lies and knives…or did it? Was it the beginning of the end or the end of the beginning? How can you know, and does it really matter? At the end of the day, are they the same? For some, it’s a slow slide to blackness…so slowly that you don’t even notice until you are already there. For me, I could see the wall looming in the distance for a long time. But did I avoid it? No. I ran straight into it…not once, but twice, even three times. Because, you see, I knew I was strong enough to shatter it.

The end of the beginning…a different concept. How else can you reconcile a life that seemed perfectly content in shades of gray, suddenly became a Technicolor reality all at once, then crashed headlong into a wall of darkness of your own making? In 50 years, I learned one thing…never trust anyone or depend on anyone but yourself. Build the walls, and never let anyone see over the top. But you forget that the walls that are keeping everyone out are also keeping you locked inside.

It’s like Pandora…when you let someone in, you open the box, break down the wall, and allow all the miseries of the world to invade your space. You shut the box and rebuild the walls and hope that you were fast enough to keep hope…the last and only chance…from escaping.

But then you’re stuck inside the walls, surrounded by the illusions that you have created for those around you…the people who think they know you. You won’t let them inside the walls, and yet you resent them for not seeing for themselves that there’s another side buried deep inside that fortress. It’s not fair, but it is the reality that you live with.

So…the beginning of the end or the end of the beginning. It’s all about perspective. And lies and knives? That’s a story for another day.