Dantes’ Journal 10-13-2007

Choices...I sometimes wonder if they’re the devil’s concoction meant to torture the soul. For some it’s easy to live in the black and white world where ignorance reigns and life is simple. I sometimes wonder how much easier things would be without the shades of grey that paint every aspect of our lives. For every choice has a consequence, rippling out upon the world around us, effecting those closest to us and even those we may never meet, in ways we may never understand.

For those not close it’s easy to overlook how our actions may change their lives. For those we love, our choices carry a different weight capable of forever changing their souls. It’s a change we see firsthand, that we cannot hide from or ignore. It’s there, staring us in the face and forcing us to see the destruction we’re capable of even when our intentions are righteous.

I realize the result of those choices every time I see her face, and every time it becomes harder to endure. We’ve both made choices that can never be changed, but that have resulted in our very souls being changed forever. We’re both broken in ways that are so similar and yet so different. There’s no telling of the extent of the damage we’ve caused one another. Yet stubbornly we endure.

I can’t bring myself to let go because of love, for the hope that things will somehow return to the way they were so many centuries ago. It sometimes feels like a losing battle. There’s a wall that neither of us will willingly let crumble, as much as our souls may yearn for one another.

I sometimes wonder if it’d be easier to walk away, or if the butterflies I feel when I see her face are more a remembrance of what we once had and not of present feelings. When I look into her eyes, for an instant I catch the same question gnawing at her heart, and then like my own thoughts it fades into a familiarity and a passion to hold on and never let go.

Yet, when it ends that wall returns. A questioning...a distrust, like a ghastly shadow hanging over us. No matter how close we lie, it feels like we’re a million miles apart anticipating that moment when everything implodes. Tick, tock, tick, tock.

Then the darkness closes in, the weight of our enemies pulling us back together. Even if we wanted to end it, we realize at this moment it could never happen. In a strange twist of irony, the evil that only seeks to destroy, is the one thing that binds us together when all else seems lost. In that too there is comfort.

And so we find ourselves at a crossroads, a conflict of inner and outer demons, and a loss as to where the road ahead will lead us. I can only hope that history doesn’t always repeat itself as I’ve so often seen. I can hope that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and that somehow we’ll find a way to overcome the wall that seems to be growing with every question that arises.

There must be somewhere in this world where a dreary soul can find peace. Where inner and outer turmoil cease to exist and the consequences of choices aren’t so severe. There must be somewhere where such a place exists...if only...