Desperation … That crumbling moment when I will say or do anything, so as not to receive the natural, yet now unacceptable, consequences.
It is the unveiled realization that I have set my standards well below my own tolerance. In the guise of this awareness I am willing to barter. And it is not that I even want what is being offered. It is, that I don’t want what life has so justly prepared to thrust upon me.
In that moment I will acquiesce to any request, thinking of consequences later.
I am only seeking time, empathy, or money. And often all three—at once. I am not in the market for what you proffer, but I know how to let you believe I am.
I am a master of manipulation. Even my own thinking can frighten me. I press it like dough. I push, roll, and pull until it has taken my chosen shape. Even then, more kneading is required; my conniving instincts run like a leaking faucet. One I have never found interest in repairing. It was always about what I was to get, never about what I was to give.
If there was a little ‘give’ in there, it was only to lead you along. I liked having you owe me. It gave me a pseudo-sense of power. The high point of my existence was pretending I was someone I was not. I possessed two primary modes of escape: more manipulation and the altering my mind. I did neither successfully—over time.
Desperation … That moment that offered me another moment. A splinter of time that ached as I experienced it.
What was this? What did I just feel?
So alien.
So awkward.
Now it lingered.
Could it be that I can choose something different than I have chosen before? Is that even possible? Is this what this feeling is saying to me?
Desperation has yielded nothing of value, except this strange moment.
This was not to be my last, but my first, true encounter with this foreign friend.
Only hindsight could reveal its true beauty …
The anomaly in time … where I humbly greeted Courage.
∞
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