There is a shift happening in my world, a ‘click’ in my
mind, recognizing that something is going to be different. Not just a season of difference, but after
this nothing will be the same.
Today is the last day of Forgotten Realms. But the camp is as it always was. Too few people in the camp helping, ready to
do the work necessary. Too few advocates
ready to help, many making promises that no one delivers on. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Tomorrow, or the next day, advocates will
condemn the camp, without ever having understood the work that myself and
especially the leadership of the camp put into it.
Tomorrow I will begin work as a cleaner. I don’t see this work as an end, but as a means
to an end. I will have time to explore
my mind, to see where I am and where I should be.
In a year and a half I will be preparing to move to a different
place. We will put our house on the
market and I expect it to sell well. At
this point, a good chunk of the money will go for charity, housing people who
otherwise cannot be housed. And Diane
and I will establish a place for her and I to live outside of community, with
space for our children to visit or live, as necessary.
I wonder who I will be in a year. I wonder if I will have learned humility at
that point. I wonder if I will still see
myself as the smartest person in the room, or I will accept my fate as an older
man who has done his work but can no longer keep up with the times.
I wonder if the world is a bit more compassionate because of
my work. I wonder if I have really
accomplished anything. So much that I
began it seems to have fallen apart. And
the work I have done has finally caught up with me.
I have PTSD that isn’t associated with a place or an
experience, but certain people. I don’t
hate these people, and I do what I can to help them, to love them, I pray for
them, but every time I see them my chest tightens and I fight an urge to
run. Because if I don’t run, I will yell
or scream in their face because they have hurt me so deeply. They have torn apart the work that I
associated with my being.
I wonder if after I get some rest if I would be able to
forget these pains, to leave them behind.
I wonder if I would be able to meet these men, shake their hand and
honestly ask how they are without the parade of emotions behind my eyes.
I would love to have my self of twenty years ago (ambitious,
energetic, passionate), my current self (exhausted, weary, ready to give up),
and my future self (who is a mystery), sit us all down at a table and have a
conversation. Perhaps my daughter could
host a conversation between us:
“Older Steves, what would you wish the younger Steve to have
done differently?”
“Young Steve, do you approve of the changes the older Steves
made?”
“Youngest and Oldest Steve, do you feel the middle Steve to
be a coward? A weakling? Too easy to give up? Or do you think he is brave in
some way?”
“Middle Steve, do you resent the younger Steve? Do you admire the oldest Steve? Or the other way around?”
Perhaps all three of us would end up in some pacifist
fistfight.
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