I guess Spring is here....

The weather outside today is amazing. It's close to eighty degrees and with the warm weather comes a shift in the overall attitude over every single person affected. The sunshine just seems to put everyone in a better mood, make them happy, and give them this cheerfullness that doesn't exist until Spring arrives. It's almost as if with the new life brought by Spring comes a new life in the hearts of people. They are quick to dust off the strollers and go for walks down crowded subdivision sidewalks. Blankets are spread on the grass and covered with newly-committed readers of classic literature. Wool coats and boots are traded for shorts and a pair of flip-flops. When spring arrives, we all seem to come out of hibernation and begin our life again.

Today, as I sit and watch the people walk by the windows with smiles on their faces, enjoying the sunshine, I find myself unable to join them in their new-found joy. My heart hurts. It's still in one piece, thankfully, but it hurts. The sunshine outside can't seem to warm the chill I feel inside or heal the ache in my heart. I can't quite figure it out, but it feels like my heart is still curled up in a cave somwhere, sleeping off the Winter, unaware that Winter has come and gone and left Spring in its wake.

Mostly Dead

In the movie The Princess Bride, there is a scene where Inigo and Fezzik carry their friend Westley's body to the home of Miracle Max, in the hopes that Miracle Max can bring their friend back to life. To their surprise, Max tells them that he can bring Westley back to life, but only if he is "mostly dead" instead of "all dead". According to Miracle Max, " There's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Mostly dead is slightly alive."

I have only recently begun to think that his statement is more than just a quote from a classic film. Perhaps there really is a difference between "mostly dead" and "all dead". Maybe what I thought I killed and buried was never "all dead". Maybe it was still slightly alive.

I killed my dream months ago. I chose to take the life from it and put it in the ground, accepting the idea that it would no longer live inside my heart. I willfully chose to cover it up and walk away from something that had been a huge part of me for years. In my mind, I killed it. It's funny though, how "killing" something can be so hard. I don't mean the act of "killing", because that is never easy. I'm talking about killing something and knowing that it's "all dead".

Anytime you hear someone refer to death, it is done with this unspoken sense of completion or finality. When something dies, it ceases to live. Those affected by the death continue to mourn, but that which is dead remains dead and offers up no emotions or feelings. That's not the case here for me and my "dead" dream.

I had every intention of killing it, burying it and walking away to move on with my life, but it's not completely dead. At least, I think that's what the problem is. It's almost as if it continually stands back up and reminds me of the life it could have had. It seems to directly torment me.

So then what do I do? My only answer is to kill it again; kill it every day until it is no longer able to speak to me or visit my thoughts. I have to make sure it is "all dead". This however is not an easy task considering the fact that I never wanted to kill it in the first place.