Some, I imagine, did not receive traumatizing injuries during their upbringing.  I would like to meet and talk to someone who didn’t some day.   Most people I know, in a candid moment, will describe self-hatred, shame, rage, humiliation, terror, depression and several other shades of pain they don’t deserve   My father, at 80, on his death bed, admitted for the first time how the brutality he’d endured as a child had doomed him to live in a black and white world, holding off rooms full of potential abusers wherever he went, instead of using his great gifts to bring more color into the world.

No tears for us, please.  Like the fact that we all die, that injuries we suffered as young children endure is no mystery, nor anything to get tearful about.  How do we face the fact of our eventual deaths?  Outside of not thinking about it, by living as well as we can.   How do we endure the enduring hurts of childhood, even as adults, even as tough people who would rather kick somebody’s ass than admit how much we hurt?  That is hard work and does not yield to a simple answer.

We pay careful attention, think unhurriedly, use our words to describe things as clearly as we can.  We model the way we want others to treat us.  We do not do to others what we hate done to ourselves.  We consciously work to do better, to replace an angry reflex with a kind gesture.   It’s not easy, or, even, it must be admitted, in some cases, even  possible.  People may be too damaged, too bitter, crazy, anxious, desperate, invested in the needs of their egos or their justifiable rage to even imagine another way to live their lives.  Imagining a better way to live is the first step, like imagining anything is the first step to anything different.

No time at the moment to do anything but the best I can.  And wish strength to you to do the same.