to sit and dream…to sit and read…to sit and learn about the world
”To You” __Langston Hughes

Cribbing a line from a character in a TV show. This is going to be a pain point, so let's get it over with.

First a question: is there ever a justification for knowingly doing something that if revealed is guaranteed to cause pain? You’ve reached a point of decision-making, and you proceed on that
path. (You'll never have to face the consequences because it’s like a mine, in a field you've long since left. Ironically, to be fair you didn't plan the departure.) As a point in the debate, however, the secret's existence begs the question if this ever gets out, do I care? A dark version of the answer would be um, no I don't care because I'm dead. A more charitable answer would be well, we'll never know will we? You don’t  know if there’s evidence that would point to much of an answer one way or the other.How about the benefit of the doubt? We good? No, we not.

Speaking for myself, I got a diary for Christmas when I was an adolescent. I think my mother was trying to encourage me to keep up a journal, like my cahier de brouillonfrom our 3 month trip to France in ’59. She was always hardcore when it came to writing, to organizing a letter or an essay. And I liked writing so it was cool and the diary had a lock on it which I appreciated. I got bored though, and it was relegated to the bottom of a box of old school stuff. Some naive old homework from high school, even college. Come to think of it there's a lot I still could go through.

But when I came across this diary in particular and sat down to revisit it as an adult with three children and a boatload of healing to do around my own catastrophes, I made a snap decision. I burned it. (Not the plastic cover I decorated with the first names of the Beatles, that went back in the box.) Really just didn't want anybody ever to read those thoughts. I don't even want to describe them. As far as I can tell, I was trying stuff out. I could ask my 14-year-old self WTF? Kind of pointless. It is what it is or it was what it was. But it was nobody's business but mine, and I made it go away permanently.

Now, I have to admit I have a couple of other journals I've kept as an adult, actually three when you count the one I wrote when I went back to France in ‘68. A little spiral notebook, lots of treasured memories in it, some in French, that I can remember even without looking. Like when I fell in love with Henri at La Plagne, in the snow. Kind of sweet stuff. But if I was to sit down and read through the other two, I would find they are often weirdly broad.

I developed a style, which I still lean on sometimes. It can get fucking annoying because I'm dancing around just like people do in a therapy session not getting to the main course till the last 10 minutes—they just don't want to get to specifics. Too painful. So here it is:

You fucked around and I found out. More to the point, you continued to fuck around with someone from our early years that you said you wouldn't fuck around with, but you did. The moment you said you wouldn't fuck around anymore with this particular person was when I originally found out. And your response was well thought you said you didn't want to know if I fucked around so I didn't tell you because I thought that's what you wanted, was not to know because you used to say I don't wanna know, in a jokey sort away of course. But I thought you were serious about not fucking around anymore. Ever. And I went through some pretty deep torment. But we went on. And apparently you kept fucking around. So here we are.

I have my version—I can do the Rashomon thing—or maybe I could go do something like, I don't know, perform a ritual. Get all kinda Zen. Could be that's what this is. But that doesn't change the fact that in all those years of us coming back together and proceeding as if something had been settled, painfully, but nonetheless settled, turns out not to be true. At all. Hence, the landmine.

How did I find out the second time, you ask. I was trying to find people to invite to your fucking funeral. I found the last email you sent to her, obviously not knowing that you were gonna be dead the next day. And yes, I talked to her and yes, she was sad, and no, I don't give two fucks.

Oh, the things I loved about you. Your reaction at a walk off home run. Your bad ass commie activism. Your religious devotion to my singing. Your brown eyes. Your laugh.

Burn this.