Undone in the Meltdown

The voices all around me rejoiced,

Freedom has finally come.

Lying down snow shovels in the armistice,

There was joy, tears, and relief until I noticed the whole scene had been left undone.

In the ash, in the smoke, I saw the wounds that we did not know how to fix 

They were abandoned for lack of direction.

I knew then, I needed to minister to all those left undone, unfulfilled, and unquenched 

Of course, I harbored fear of being caught in the gravity well of my mess that I could not see for 5 months

All of which had ended my life in the last revolution. 

But I knelt down and aided one fallen two years ago, and within hours, it leaped to its feet and danced a dance of freedom and humility.

Another hill to climb that I could not allow myself to even touch, I laboured for hours until its conclusion, and it joined the dance of liberation. We recoil. We mourn, we search for answers, and when none come, we have to get off the floor of the saloon, brush ourselves off, and walk out the door.

In my limitations, I feel like I am falling short. I have made promises, and I see them out of the corner of my eye as if they are piles of dirt underneath the carpet.

While there are some things we should never return to, I am finding that others, especially the things promised, need to be revisited, reevaluated, and addressed.

Then I ask, what was the collective combination of tasks that caused me to lose my footing and fall hundreds of feet, making no gain last year?

My burns and abrasions remind me of the missteps. I open the journal, and the tour guide looks suspiciously like me.

He is lean and fearless and still has the big goal in his words. Where did that stop?

Turning the page, I find another guide. His adventures are so much more than mine. He just liberated himself from his chemo drip; the hills he climbs have changed dramatically.

The visitors over the last week have been stark reminders of the need to test everything you can touch, everything you can see. We lie to ourselves and say it can't be done.

And you would be right if you listened.

But no.

You can be as wrong as you want to be.

It is up to you.

It is up to me.