“i’ll be careful, i promise.” these, the last words as he grinned all crooked, carefree at me and trundled out into the big, wild world.
there is a certain wistful impotence that one holds when one realizes that ‘the voice of experience’ never finds more than deaf ears and all the best wishes in the world won’t keep someone from making the same, stupid mistakes you did.
all the love in the universe won’t stop someone who hasn’t ‘been there/done that’ from having to go there and do it.
we all wish it were possible to give our worst experiences to those we care for and love. not because we wish them to suffer to know we endured it, but so they will avoid it themselves and perhaps then, we can feel that what we endured was worth it…. if it kept someone else from the hurt… if it allows just one person to learn the lesson without having to bleed or think themselves stupid.
doesn’t work that way, of course. inevitably, they take it any number of ways that have nothing to do with your care or love and everything to do with their fear and insecurity.
‘please, just listen to me’ becomes ‘you can’t think for yourself’.
‘won’t you take my word for it’ becomes ‘they do not trust me to make my own decisions’ and ‘they think i’m unable’.
and so forth and so on until the entire meadow between two people, any two people, is so full of misconstructions and the angers that rise for them that they can’t even see one another anymore.
sometimes, it takes years to clear those weeds so the flowers can grow again.
sometimes, it never happens.
someone i know and care for promised to move cautiously, with care, and only after great consideration of the risks involved.
here, now, less than a month later, they leap directly into something that will damage everyone involved, some permanently.
so much for caution.
sigh.