I believe everyone has an event or two in their lives that is a Game Changer. I can track three for sure in my life. An event that marks a way point in your life that divides the what was, from the what now. I can easily look back and say that the person that existed before one of these points was in effect dead and a new entity walked in his place after. I am sure one would think me extreme for saying "dead" as apposed to changed or altered but in reality, those words don't come close. We experience the little twist and turns of our daily drama and we react to these as best we can. Sometimes we weep and others we laugh. There are those times that are hard and we just try to act brave hoping that bravery will indeed find us. These events are troublesome but if we are honest with ourselves, we have to admit they are common events in the course of ones life. What I am speaking of are those catastrophic events that change who you are, how you react to things, and how you look at those around you.
I will try to tell of one such event, one of three, not the least, not the most, for these things do not merit rankings as they are all events of devastation and finality. The human brain does not remember the sensation of pain. We remember that we felt pain and how that pain compared to other agonies we have had, but not the actual signal sent by the nerve endings at the time of injury. The heart and mind are not so kind for if you sit and soak in the silence of a given moment and wait for the whispers, it all comes back. Whispers, I say, because not all truth is loud and obvious but in those quiet times comes to you in whispers. My oh my how the whispers do echo. Now the real trick of this exercise is that I am not going to tell you what the Game Changer was, but I will tell you about it. It was not a fast train wreck that hit and was over in an instant leaving only cries and mangled lives, though it did catch me off guard. It was a painful slow burn that hurt from the first lighting and every time I felt as if the smoke was clearing and I might find my way out of the blaze another wind of revelation would come along and fan the flames a little higher than they were before. I am not a man accustomed to tears as I learned long ago that they were not mine to own. I did water many fields of woe during this time regardless of my emotional water rights. I usually write to empty out what I am feeling, to try to make sense of what I feel. For the next year, I carried a small red journal in my pocket writing down what I had found and how I felt. It was my way of compartmentalizing this thing, to put it in its place, to put it somewhere. I gave the book a title, "Look to December" and though the title began as one of hope for future light and relief, it only took one more revelation to turn that title of optimistic retreat into another battle field scar. When you go through a Game Changer, you start to wonder if it is all you, if you caused all this, then you start telling yourself you don't deserve this. I learned in church you had best be careful telling God what you deserve because He knows for sure, and He might just show you one day. I hated being wherever I was no matter where that there was. In truth I hated whatever I was during those days no matter what name one called it. It was not hard to find a reason for dislike on any topic or in any relationship. I had all but convinced myself that my time among people had just about run its course, that I had no place left here and should set about my own plans to leave. Leave and not to return, like Bilbo perhaps. I still have the little red book that I wrote in for that year of survival tactics and I have it near me most of the time. It is sealed and I don't even look in it. I think that someday I will not even want the temptation to look back at the things I spilled out in such raw sloppy emotion in those pages but can't bring myself to burn it. Every year seems to have a December so I find myself reflecting on the title for the month leading up to it and the whole namesake of the book itself.
In the end, I am still here but make no mistakes, I am not he that was. He did not make it through the smoke and ash that was left in the wake. Some of the post impact changes were pure misery, but some where what I would classify as good changes to the plan that was myself. I am stronger now, in both body and will. I have made many new friends in that time, in fact I have made more friends in the two years since than I had in the ten years preceding my burning. I have found interest in things that I had not found in ages and for all this I am thankful. But I am not sure if I would not trade all these good things in a heart beat to get back that time. I might just trade these to rid myself of the darkness that never left. It hides in there and yes, I know we all have our shadow places whether we want to find them or not. In the times since, I have felt as if my vacuous devouring missing self would cause a collapse in this new beginning. If reading this has given you any concern. let it go because I write this not to alarm or gain any petitioned sympathy. I write because that is how I empty things out, I write because it helps me, and most of all, I am writing this because it is December.
