Four Letter Words

Hurt. Pain. Ache. These are the four letter words that have encircled my thoughts for the past few weeks.  It is almost the proverbial "circling the wagons". I want to feel safe in this shield of wagons; I need to know if I have to fight my way out or if I need to surrender and move on.  There is a difference, you know, between surrender and defeat.  Chief Joseph, after seeing all of his people---women, children, a few warriors that were left in that Montana cold field only miles from the Canadian border, surrendered not because of his hurt but the pain his people felt.  

That's the essence of hurt.  It isn't a solitary being. It's a ripple in a pond that leads to a river that rushes to another river and eventually there is a lake of hurt, a lake of pain where it sinks to the bottom. 

If it were Easter time instead of Christmas, there might be some sort of relief to know that the pain I feel is nothing compared to the pain of sacrifice. All the great leaders, movers and shakers, justice fighters, people savers, warriors KNOW that sacrifice is not a definition in some book; it is a scar beneath another scar that has weaken the tissue below it and is so vulnerable to infection.  

I am not that noble.  I am not that brave.  

I want to use other four letters words like......kill my pain.....take it away....damn it upon the person that hurt me....numb myself with distractions......burn it down with all my anger. 

Why is it when we are at our lowest or at our angriest we want those four letter words.  The streets are full of people using a dirtied display of those words at any given moment. The driver in front of you is too slow, out of nowhere a car pulls out in front of you, someone knocks into you spilling your coffee, you slip and fall, the wireless loses its connection, the boss asks you to do one more thing before you leave for the weekend.  At those moments we do not remember the vocabulary lessons of our school days; we do not remember the words our mothers washed with soap out of our mouths. We don't remember; we act. 

There are no rose colored glasses on this writer---in fact, I am blind without my prescription thick looking glasses that try to see a perspective other than what I feel.  My mother once told me to never count on emotions because they betray you; they are fleeting and changing. I know she is right.....I guess the older I get, I finally SEE that there are some truths that others have learned before me.  It still doesn't make it easy---there's a four letter word I don't often say. 

Here's another principle that my mother also shared with me: LOVE is often considered an emotion but since emotions cannot be relied on, it has to be more than that.  Love is Hope it is Hard it takes Time but it can Heal.  Don't let hurt Take your Joy. Release the wagons that encircle you and surrender to the Fact that we can choose Love.  Romantic poets had it all wrong. I want to let Lord Byron, Percy Shelley and the others know, that love is not fleeting nor beautiful nor something that is lost and regained.  Those are simple concepts of Love.  Love is a shield dented by hurt, tarnished by pain but worn day in and day out.  Sometimes we have the energy to polish it, take care of it.  The other times, well, it waits for us.  It is always there.