My Shadow

It's interesting what happens when you least expect it. The dark hood of night dulls your senses and keeps the suprises well hidden.

A million things could attack you, and you could be mildly disturbed while you do your best to cope, and you get out alright. Life moves on, and you forget it even happens, no matter how important it was. You treat it as the past, and rightfully so, never letting the past follow you and hold you down.

The past can rarely ever come back at you. Only if you let it. That's the key. And when it does, sometimes it shakes your very foundation and lets you know just how solid the ground beneath you is. It's quite scary. It gives you an adrenaline rush. It puts you in shock. It throws you for a loop. It makes you inadvertently question everything you know and force you to make a desicion right then and there.

Not only does it make you question, it brings parts of your life out of the dark and into your vision. Things that you've learned from and put away, hoping they'd never come back to visit again. Things that shaped your core, and you hope you'd never have to encounter again. Those things are scary, and should be avoided whenever you can.

But when you are forced to face them again, whether or not they're planned or pops up in your face without warning, it's always strange. It's a deja vu feeling, but not the one you want. It's the feeling that you get when you know something's gonna happen and you don't want to be there. But life doesn't listen to you and kicks you back so you can face your fears. And even after you've faced it and walked away, it's not over.

If we were perfect, then we wouldn't struggle with old emotions. We are all imperfect, all confused inside, all oxymorons in some way. But we hide it with illusions that we're not. We hide it with calm and maturity and words that puts confidence in other people. This is not bad, but it should not blind either.

Something came to me last night and came out of my shadow and rocked the very foundation that I was standing on. Something that I thought I had learned from and put away came back and showed me I was wrong. Something that was beautiful showed me that I was ugly inside.

It shocked me. But it showed me more than anything that I'm human, and that I need to give up so I can learn how to live. I don't yet. I'm just starting.