Whats Next

It never ceases to amaze me how when I hang clothes out on the line, I can make it rain... But oh well, an extra rinse doesn't hurt a thing when the water is free.

But whats really on my mind?

Nothing lasts, everything passes. In all things the words ring, this too shall pass.

Things happen during a lifetime. Some bring pain, some end in pain. Some cause the mind to build defenses like walls.

Walls have flaws, walls erode over time.

One day a ray of hope penetrates the walls.

Memories of happier moments that have fluttered by like hummingbirds through a lifetime come to mind.

The mind begins to wonder.

The emptiness and solitude behind the walls feeds the wonder.

With lessons taught by past pains we know that to protect ourselves we should patch those walls. Reinforce them. Give them a fresh coat of paint.

But do we?

Should we?

Doubts arise. Hope springs. The heart begins to blossom. Joyful thoughts begin to arise. The mind begins to play with ideas of bright and happy days. Days of no more loneliness. Days of no more solitude. Days of having someone to share with.

Those ideas grow to ideas of a lifetime of joy and happiness.

Just how much can one being take before they shut down forever? Before the death of hope is final. Before they've learned to try no more. Before they have turned into a cold and icy, uncaring piece of rock as hard as granite.

It's not hard to make the decision to build those walls. Not hard to say you can accept the solitude of being alone. Not even hard to find what you enjoy doing alone and do it.

But that damned hope. How does one keep out a sneaky thing like hope.

But when one allows those walls to crumble they surely know there could be more pain of heartache! More weeks, months and even years of self loathing and self pity.

Yet the walls come tumbling down.

New, yet old, doubts come easily into the mind at the slightest words or actions. The seasoned brain plays games within itself. Tears that may not have just cause pour out. The stomach knots, old fears arise. Worries fed by bad memories of the past send shutters through the bones.

You know that should more heartache come from your foolish abandonment of your walls that you will have no one, no one but yourself to blame!

You look back at the pile of dust that once was your defenses, your walls. You ask, which hurts more?

Heartache from becoming someone in someones past?

Or the everyday heartache you knew in your solitary hideout behind those walls filled with loneliness?

Maybe there are two things that are eternal. Hope and fear.

But just maybe, possibly, someone will have the eraser that will erase the fears.

See! There is that hope again. Seems there is no eraser for that.

But could it be that once hope is trampled enough even it's roots will die and wither away?

Could some fool be close to finding out the answer to that question?

To late now. The book has been opened, chapters have been read. There is no way to skip to the ending to see.

Confounded confusion!

What's next?

We shall see.