Monthly Archives: October 2017

10.08.17
by

617: If you don’t know me by now

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That song by Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes is running through my head like a funeral dirge. In a way, it is a funeral dirge. The song says to the other lover, “You have grossly and fundamentally misunderstood me yet again, after all this time, and all my examples to the contrary.”

That song is a funeral dirge – a sad song sung at the death of something valued. The thing that died is trust and understanding.

I feel sad, because it is quite normal to feel sad when something that was valued dies. It is even more tragic when it died because it was murdered, with a deliberate choice to believe something of me……that is not me, by inclination or by example.

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After this happens, I have to choose. I have to choose between forgiving/understanding/explaining one more time, and resurrecting what died (and it feels like an un-dead zombie for quite a while after it is resurrected), or accepting that your judgment of me really is the way you think of me fundamentally down deep inside yourself, and let it remain dead, have the funeral, sing the song, and MOVE ON.

Yes, the hardest choice you will ever make is whether to stick with it and give it one MORE try, or whether to finally accept that this thing is dead, was so flawed at the foundation to start with that it cannot be reanimated into an awkward un-dead, but still mostly dead, rotting, worm and decay infested zombie, slowly and painfully warming up to resemble real life.

So, do  I turn the page and keep reading this stinker of a novel, or close the book, and decide whether to choose another, different book, or just swear off reading forever? I have been known to continue reading a stinker to the bitter end, and I have also closed a stinker and found another book. Not sure which choice was the better one – and I am darn sure that I am not looking forward to having to make either choice yet again.

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Time to choose, because not choosing is still a choice.