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Drabble Corner

Michelle Swisz

This month it was very hard to pick just one Drabble to present. Here it is, on the topic of human connection, by Sandy Topzand.

"Something inside me wants to mess it up," he whispered, his face hard in my shoulder. His fists clutched my t-shirt.
"Can you tell me why?" I asked, holding him as he shuddered.
"I don't know. I don't know. What is it?" he begged. "You see things, I know you do. What is it?"
"It's your inner critic," I told him, and he wept and wept, the gates unlocked.
"Listen to me," I said, putting his hand over my heart. "I am for you. Can you feel it? I am for you."
He hesitated, then nodded, mute with sobs.

As I write this, Thanksgiving is nearly upon us. I hope for all of us that we are thankful for our Thanksgiving this year, no matter the squabbles that show us that nothing has changed, or disappointments with the consistency of the stuffing.

Sometimes a particular change in us has so far only taken place on the inside, and it's quite frustrating when even those we're closest to can't see that something big is going on in us. And, mysteriously, sometimes it's another person besides ourselves, even someone who's pretty new in our lives, who notices a change in us before we ourselves do. Maybe it's that we are more engaged in life, for instance.

Wouldn't this change in us have been real even if it hadn't been noticed by anyone else? Sure, it would have been. But when the newer you becomes outwardly visible so that someone besides you speaks up, then you know on a different level than before that a change is actually happening (even if you don't know where exactly it is that you're going with it). When someone besides you notices, you can see that you are not merely fooling yourself into thinking you've made a personal change when it's really only your imagination that's moved, and that you are not just stuck in a perpetual internal wash and rinse cycle, changing constantly and tortuously without getting anywhere.

And, what if it is true that we don't know what we want to do with our newly changing self? Are we supposed to know? That's not just an idle question. To the extent that we don't know, we might merely drift along, thus giving up the sort of security that comes from setting and achieving life goals. But if, on the other hand, we know rigidly just and exactly what we want, that sort of knowing might take away some of the spontaneity that allows us to get from the world what we need when we need it. You might think, for example, at age 50, that you want to live in New York City, so that you can realize your ongoing and unexamined romantic teenage dream of starring in Broadway musicals. Yet, in making that quest, you might miss chances to find an even truer version of yourself that you might have if you were to quiet the voice of the acting ambitions long enough to listen to what life had to offer now. It might still be Broadway, or it might be Peace Corps. But you'd never know if you didn't listen.

Here's another example. It's expensive to live on the west coast, but the climate there is perfect for your needs, your family is close by, and you won't be able to get back into its obscenely expensive real estate market (which is much of your planned source of future security) if you sell your home to leave. Yet, you're scrimping to stay, and there is a low-income housing project going up right down the street, which could either drive down your home value, or itself become your next home, or each in turn. Do you follow your sense of adventure and find a place hundreds or thousands of miles away that suits you and your financial condition, or do you dig in and get stubborn and passionate about making it work where you are and, regardless of the risk of losing it anyway, make the place you are in your own?

Recklessness can sometimes be romanticized. Myself, I tend to romanticize the ease of living that in this mood I remember having had in my early 20s, when nearly always I easily followed one path or another, this job or that one, this guy or the other one—as I remember it, without examining the memories too closely, never feeling stuck or indecisive. I sometimes mercifully forget the terrible misery and confusion of the consequences of a few of my decisions back then.

Here's my question: How do we move forward with our life changes without totaling ourselves by crashing into the walls of too much recklessness on the one hand, or too much caution, on the other? Balance is our theme for the next Drabble, which will be a 100-word (excluding title) story illustrating balance, rather than a piece about balance. Read the Guidelines, and then send your drabbles to: drabble@wvu.org. See you all next time.