There are a million reasons that I could give you.

But not a single one is an excuse. It was a mistake, but that word is a cop out. What I did was a choice. I made a choice that included some salve for me and pain for you. I chose to help me and hurt you.

I chose to hurt you.

You were an innocent bystander hit by a stray bullet. I hoped that you wouldn’t get hit by it. But I made the choice to shoot knowing that you were in the way and knowing that this might happen.

The next time, in that nano-second where I must choose something that will change everything, today will flash before me, this moment. This moment when you are hurting and I am desperately powerless. Unable to help you. Unable to take anything back, to change anything.

Next time I have a choice to make, I hope that I can access not just the knowledge of this day but the sharp blade of this minute. I want to feel the sting in my heart that keeps me awake tonight, before time starts to soften it into a memory.

But those fateful minutes, hours, days have been run through a shredder. And I’ve been trying, futilely, to glue the frayed strips of time back together in a hundred different ways. Replaying the steps unfolding, undoing them, re-doing them. Watching yesterday on slow motion, on pause and rewind.

But this is a waste of time. The time for that decision is over. Those moments and the choices encapsulated inside them, have been dissolved, shredded, obliterated.

Like us.

Whatever I would or would not do differently is of no consequence. It’s done.

Like us.

The us of yesterday has ended, died with the day.

If there is ever a new us, it will be something brand new, young, uncertain, raw, fragile.

Everything is a choice. How we move forward, together or apart, is a choice. Whether we choose to create, raise, nourish, cultivate a new us, is a choice that must be made by both of us, over and over. In each hour. In each day.

And when time has smoothed these sharp edges, as only time can, we will be less “betrayer” and “betrayed.” The labels of our choices will start to fade and we will start to see ourselves in the mirror again. We will start to see each other again.

And then, when I am me and you are you, we will have new choices to make. And new people to become.

~ Today, just a betrayer. Tomorrow, just me. Possibly, eventually, hopefully, one day, just half of us. 

~

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Author: Jenny Spitzer 

Editor: Travis May

Photo: Wikipedia