The Real Way

Everything is relative.

No matter how good things are, I can find something to be unhappy about, but sometimes the scale does seem to be tipped in really frustrating ways.

I go for years trying to achieve some particular goal and when it arrives it is accompanied by baggage that has nothing to do with it at all.

I might expect a few gray hairs, or perhaps a wrinkle, or two. After all I am no spring chicken, but other things just seem unfair. There is that word again, fair. I know that there is absolutely no reason to expect fairness. There are many people all over the world who suffer through much worse things than I do, but my little world forgets that.

My world becomes accustomed to things being a certain way and I learn to deal with them. Just when I think I have things pretty much under control, something else pops up to show me how little control I really do have.

It is inconvenient. It is embarrassing and sometimes it is just simply painful. I suppose these are the "tests" that poems and literature write about all the time. Am I really as "whatever it is I think I am" as I like to believe? It all sounds much more romantic to read about than it feels in actual life.

There is so little romantic about real pain if I am the one experiencing it. The romance is all on the side of observation, whether that observer is me, or you.

Maybe that is why stories are written. When reality cannot be changed, then it is a sort of panacea to write about how noble, or sweet it can be to deal with it, and of course, it helps to sell the story if there is some romance too.