Originally posted 16 October 2007

is the inability of the human mind to truly grasp the consequences of one's deeds.

    I have done some terrible things in my life.  I have done some wonderful things.  Like most, the majority of my existence is spent in mediocrity, doing those simple things required of life:  Sleeping, eating, shitting...  It's not often a man changes the world from the toilet (unless the man is Elvis).  But, all too often I have seen the consequences of my actions and inactions, the unintended side-effects of things that, at the time, seemed so silly, so pointless, so mundane.
    One seemingly simple decision made in haste, under duress or lacking important knowledge might change the course of an entire life, an entire civilization.  A single careless error could alter the course of history.  "Even the best laid plans", it's said and proves true more often than not.  There are moments, fleeting and ephemeral at best, when one can change the course of another person's day, another person's life, by performance of a specific act or, perhaps more often, by simply not.
    An individual on the edge, teetering on the brink between destruction and salvation waits for a push.  A sympathetic ear, a kind word, a soft touch might be the one thing that pulls that person back, reaffirms belief in a world where things can be good.  By the same token, a hard look or a careless and stinging statement could turn a person in desperate need of help into something beyond all earthly assistance.
    A marriage can end that way:  Receiving casual cruelty when in desperate need of kindness; finding only solitude when pining for affection; being desperately honest and never gaining your lover's trust.  It doesn't happen every day, of course, or there would never have been a wedding.  No, not every time, maybe not even most of the time.  Once is, however, too often, and "only once" never happens.  Inexorably, a wedge is driven betwixt the couple.
    Hammer-blows -- from in-laws either way too involved, or not at all; unexpected expenses starting a cruel downward (financial) spiral from which there is no apparent escape; the everyday minor clashes as one learns how to be a wife, a husband, a parent; the major clashes over money, employment, infidelity -- widen that gap.  It happens so slowly at first, one does not even notice.  Like watching your own hair grow, it is hard to see changes that occur at a glacial pace.  The deeper the split goes, the faster the one becomes two and, quite suddenly, the person on the other end of the couch is a total stranger with whom you cohabitate by a twist of Fate, to whom your only connection is the children who watch you fight.  Perhaps if I had not been so distant...  If only she had even feigned an interest in the activities I enjoyed the most...  If she had not destroyed my faith in her, and I had not, in turn, ruined her trust in me...
    Coulda...
    Shoulda...
    Woulda...

    Sometimes, no matter how much you still care and no matter how badly you want "things to be different" or, dare I say it, "better", you have to know when you have been beaten.  You have to know when to walk away.  Live and learn, I suppose.  I have, too, and a valuable lesson it was:  It is truly the little things that count the most.  Grand gestures and lavish gifts are fun, and exciting, but neither are nearly as wonderful to receive as a smile or a warm embrace.
    Things cannot replace people, no matter how much nor how often I wish they could.