People writing songs that voices never share
And no one dared
Disturb the sound of silence."
As perceptive as I liken myself to be, I am amazed by my own nearsightedness and blindness. Always it seems I am late to discover something about my life, which then becomes a major source of regret. Like - who is really important. Who is not. Who someone really is. I feel like an idiot when I miss out on something important.
I have developed a defense against this, though. I never hold anything back. Today, I gave someone a present I worked on for months. I don't know this person very well, but I knew that what I did would make them smile because they once told me how much it would mean to them if someone gave them the kind of present I gave. She loved it. Let me repeat - we are definitely friends and think well of one another, but we are not "good friends." I did it for no other reason than I knew it was a good idea. I knew that if I held back, I might end up regretting it. I know very well that I can't prevent every regret that might come my way, but I'll be damned if I am not going to do anything I know I can do to stop it. I will hold nothing back.
What good can come of the things we do and say to one another? How can you know if you don't do it? So long as the action is intrinsically good, good can come of it. Don't hold any of it back. That was the principle of the gift I gave today.
Today, I had to call two people. For different reasons. To the first, I said some things that I shouldn't have said. I meant what I said, but I knew saying it would send the wrong message. So I apologized and we understood one another again. However, I am glad I made that mistake. I held nothing back. Nothing at all - I said whatever I wanted to say in just the slightest hope that something significant would be learned from it. And I did learn. I learned I need to keep my mouth shut when I'm too tired to think straight.
The other person I called because I knew I had something I needed to say. I could have held it back - let the fact that I would miss them terribly next year an unsaid given. But I knew I had made a mistake. I have taken this person for granted for almost the entire time I've known them. I have been under a paradigm, a rigid stubborn view of them that never allowed me to see them as they are. I passed up opportunities to get to know this person in new ways, beautiful ways, and now I see that my time with them is running much shorter, much quicker than I would have ever imagined. I blew it. I had to tell them. Had to say sorry - even if I knew they wouldn't take an apology, or even understand why I was sorry. I found out too late in my blindness what I had missed all along. But at least...at least I had the benefit of finally telling the truth. The truth I'd discovered now that the scales dropped from my eyes.
There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream for true sight.
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