Pride Tour - Part I

It was not something that came all of a sudden and I was caught unprepared or something.

I could hear the thoughts going through my mind - the metaphorical gears moving and clicking. At that moment, it felt like the right thing to say. In my mind, I didn't want the blame. But I also didn't want them to have to deal with this blame. That last part will likely get lost in the wash.

It all happened in slow motion, and I watched it happen in my mind's eye. The words were out there. Once I realized what I had done, much later, I wished I had said different things, differently. Unfortunately, as you know, once the words are out there, that specific wave function has collapsed and a chain of immutable events has been triggered. You could not just take it back. Wheels were set in motion that you could not retrace.

Sure, there's the Arrow of Time Paradox, but time still moves in only one direction. We haven't cracked that mystery yet and I don't know if we ever will.

In any case, much later, when the consequences boomeranged back to say hello and hi, I froze. I can perhaps see why that phrase is used now. This was not something coming from my gut. Instead, it was the chills. I felt cold like I had a fever and I was shivering, my teeth chattering. My suspicion is that my body was trying to deal with the dissonance of it all.

Dissonance from the expectation of who I was and who I presented myself as and here those consequences were about to reveal that to be untrue. That mirror lay in pieces. I was racked with shame and guilt, but mostly shame, as the scene played out in my head. Worst-case scenarios landing at the near inevitable conclusion - an apocalyptic dramatic movie playing out in an infinite loop - with minor tweaks on every replay.

There's a part of me that's thrilled I noticed the early slow-motion movie - like being able to capture a perfectly sharp still photo of a cheetah in motion on its run to catch a fawn. Sure, I failed to do the right thing in this instance, but there's the increased possibility that I can better process these kind of events when they happen the next time around.

Still, I'm lucky that the consequences and I could sit at the coffee table, each have a cup of coffee and talk about what happened and what to do next.

There is nothing else to do, in this specific instance, but to submit to that fire.

That fire is the only extinguisher I have available.