amateur

growing up i lived beneath her shadow. being young i didn't know there was any other way. as i emerged into adulthood i became resentful of it and i wanted to get as far away from it as possible. i feel i've lived my entire adult life trying to fight it, but you can't fight a shadow and it's never going away.

i don't want to be controlled or dominated by it anymore, but i realize there's no sense if pointing fingers or demanding that she take her shadow someplace else. to be near her is to have it touch me. it's part of who she is. so either i can go down fighting then be cast away and charged with mutiny. or i can accept the fact that i will forever haunted by this shadow and put my energies into different approaches. i want to dance my way around her shade. i can get close to it without it encompassing me. i'm not a helpless child anymore, nor am i an angry teenager. the challenge with shadow casters is that they like to spread it around. they can't imagine existing without consuming everything and everyone, so they cast their shadows like fishermen cast their nets. hoping to pull everything into their grasp. while that's their perception, that's not reality. everything cannot belong to them. to bring peace i must simultaneously let her think that she can draw me in while at the same time dancing just outside. i need to make my place on the edge where i can still feel the sun on my face.

if i want things to be different then i need to be different. i've tried running, i've tried fighting, i've tried resisting. i guess the only thing i've never tried, never thought to try, is to let my own shadow be seen - known, recognized, acknowledge. this isn't the easiest approach, but i suspect it's the only one that will create changed in our dynamics.

 

you may be workin' in a barbershop,
you may know how to cut hair.