I wrote this s few years ago but couldn’t post.  Now, I will.

it’s just a story.

have you ever been hit by a truck?

i was. fortunately, i am still alive.

unfortunately, i still relive the impact every once in a while.

it’s not the first time i’ve been hit. but still, it hurts like hell. i lost something in the accident. sometimes i want to believe it’s still there. my phantom limb. that hurts like a mother fucker too. i hear that pain will recede. i hope so. i am not always strong when i need to be.

i learned something. the difference between cannot and will not. will not is a conscious decision to do or not do something, what that something is, is irrelevant. cannot is usually the cop out for will not. cannot is the hiding behind some force or power that you believe is stronger than yourself. cannot is the conscious decision to remove yourself from responsibility as as if the choice was never yours.

a different accident.

remember when you were six years old? coming home from school and seeing daddy drunk, sitting on the hallway stairs? again. and you tried really hard not cry, because he got wicked angry and would hit you. but you cried anyway. but you promised, daddy… you promised. i think he felt a little bad. at least at first. he made me sit on his lap. and i’d be crying hard by now. he said he couldn’t help it. and once he finished the bottle, which was closer to him than i would ever be, that would be the last bottle. in fact he would quit tomorrow.

but it didn’t happen. by now he would get so angry at everything you did, so you quit saying anything anymore. smaller than a comma, insignificant as a cough. but you kept believing because you wanted it so badly.

one day he would. one day he would quit. one day he would notice me. not an object, not a portal. one day he would love me like he was supposed to. one day he would stop hitting me. one day everything would stop. one day, an angel would brush my hair, seventy seven strokes, and my horse would come riding by and carry me to the water with my angel flying beside me. one day. everything good and nothing bad.

where was i? i think i fell asleep.

so that was that and this is this. but the process is the same. i couldn’t make it happen. and that’s not a cop out. sometimes can’t… is just can’t.

the hating doesn’t happen anymore.. as it did when i was younger. i’m not sure why. but i know i am glad about it. the little shit storms are still there though. the ones that i fall into on occasion. sometimes i stay there for a while. i just do.

until the pain from the impact is gone.