On Giving Up

Or letting go. Or whatever.

I used to speak. A lot.

I’d tell all sorts of people all sorts of things.

My history. My life. My stories. My lies. My. My. My.

(My.)

But I have no story.

I have memories, sure. All sorts.

Heroics, tragedies, all sorts of comedy contrived through bias-eyes and a once hardening heart.

Once, I told “my story” to a dear friend and mentor. It took a lot of time and many words. Too many words.

“That’s quite the tragic tale of woe you must live up to the rest of your days,” he told me.

Well I have no tale to tell. No bone to pick. Maybe those things happened. I can remember them, if I try. Sometimes those things are the more remembered when I don’t try.

Well, I don’t try — or not try — anymore. And I release my grasp on all that was never mine to hold onto so tightly. Well, I loosen my grasp…

…I once wanted to write a book about it all, the stuff I remembered. I even started writing that book. Really, I felt I had to do that thing. And I was sure, somewhere deep, that it would be some huge glory — to match the endeavor it was to live through and also to have survived it all. I don’t know whose want that was. I don’t know much… No — I don’t know anything. That much I know.