I am a sucker for closure. Give me the book, story, or event with the ribbon tied in a beautiful bow at the end and i am happy. And the bow doesn't have to be beautiful or silk or satin; the ribbon can be dotted or frayed - I just like to have it all wrapped up and storylines untangled with challenges resolved.
I like the box neatly wrapped and the ribbon tied in a bow.
Life doesn't work like that.
I can bang my head against walls and fling my fists in the air demonstrating just how fair life isn't (because it isn't) and nothing changes. Resolution isn't a given and closure doesn't always happen. Sometimes boxes go without ribbons completely or knots are left bare, no bow in sight.
I am working on this - learning to accept what is over raging against what is in favor of what I would rather it be.
Days do appear in which I know that I can accept without understanding - I can be okay with this or that and not have to like it but accept that it is just what it is.
And then there are days when I want nothing more than for someone to sit down with me and explain "why!"
And it isn't the small stuff - it is the big stuff. It is the why of war and the why of people behaving as they do toward one another. it is the why of my office insanity and the why of people not wanting to take responsibility for their actions. And it is the why of people claiming a job well done as their own even if they never lifted a finger.
All these "why" questions can prove draining.
I want so badly for people to just open their hearts and their eyes and truly SEE what they are doing to one another and through this behavior, what they are doing to themselves.
I recently read a book that I highly recommend to parents and young adult readers called Thirteen Reasons Why. What I found striking about the book was that the outcome is dependent upon the accountability (or lack there of) of the different characters; the lack of concern about one another despite their knowledge and experience.
From an early age, I taught my daughter to treat others as she would want to be treated. I continue to talk with her about each of us really wanting the same thing - to be happy and not to suffer. i want her to see the human similarities between herself and others. I want her to respect that sameness as she does the diversity. I want her to SEE others and treat them with respect and to treat herself in the same way.
I look around me and wonder if I am fighting a losing battle? She sees people treating one another as if they don't matter; as if they aren't human at all; as if there are invisible people in our midst. She has witnessed someone treating me like that; I am witnessing someone treating her like that.
My heart screams... Why??? How???
And I go back to remembering that I can accept and recognize that it just is... it just is...
No bows, no nicely tied boxes with ribbons
It just is
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