Something Not Mine

This week something horrifying and terrifying and brutal happened. Not to me and not to anyone that I know. A friend of a friend; a friend of my sister. A woman, described by so many as a beautiful soul, perished in the middle of a dark road in the middle of the night. Alone and a block from her house. She was, as all evidence leads us to believe, struck by a car. This car was driven by an individual who may have been scared, may have been drunk - who knows - but without question this person did not have the capacity to give a damn about helping another fucking human being.

Each of us touch one another's lives in ways that none of us understand. I'd never met this woman to my knowledge, but I have met the front end of a very large vehicle driven by a careless person. We'll always share that - we two. The difference is that I lived and she didn't. The thing that we have in common is also the thing that separates us. Though we are so much the same, I can't grab her and hold her body here on earth. That is not mine to do and her physical body is not ours to keep.

I still struggle with how much danger there is in this world and I do have fear about more things than ever before. But, it is still a beautiful world if we choose to see it that way. I think I believe that. But, I've got to grab that peace and beauty and precious absurdity and make it mine. You actually can't walk through the world with your eyes open ALL of the time. Occasionally, you have to blink. Just accept that the whole world can change during that brief second and try to remember all of the other things that didn't change. Some things are yours to keep and others are not. Some things you just remember...and let go.

There's someone in the world that said this better than I ever could. Please, please go read.