his eyes

it's odd how it all shows up in the eyes.
his eyes were showing it big time and it wasn't good.
i looked at them, and put everything aside.

really upset, he came in and told me about it.

ahhhh man, i thought.

this is bad stuff.
really really really bad stuff.

the stuff that damages kids.
and he's on the sidelines watching and getting
really upset.

and it's one of those things that you just stand on the side
with and think 'there has GOT to be some way to stop this.'
and you go nuts trying to figure a way.
and there is none.

you go nuts tryin' to figure out why parents damage their
kids so much. it doesn't compute that parents are just wounded
people and really wounded people can really mess up their kids.
it's so so hard to compute and try to hold.
and accept? not sure if that's even possible. i have yet to find it.

we talked it thru a bit.
i suggested ways he could 'be there' for the young guy,
and i agreed that some pretty lousy endings could happen.
and i understood his angst.

his way of coping is cynicism.
that's always hard for me.
i don't know what to do with that a lot of times.
i just let it roll out and leave it be.

but this time, at one point, i just looked him square in
those troubled eyes and spoke what i truly believe straight
to his cynicism.

no, i don't think you can change the world, i agreed.
but i DO think you can touch it.
in fact, i know that.
i totally know that.
and touching it is no small thing.
and you touch it every single day.
and what you do matters and changes things.
maybe not the world. but things. and yeah, it plays a
role in changing people's lives.
it all adds up.
things add up and that adding up changes lives.
it DOES matter what you do.
and what you're doing is really really important.

it came straight from my heart.
no doubt, no questioning. just a knowing.
a knowing of something i've wrestled with for years now.

i think the sound of having wrestled and come to this
was in my voice.

and i saw him calm down for the first time.

i lay awake after he left thinking of it all.

he's so young.
he's dealing with stuff i didn't deal with til much later.
i wondered what would happen in this story he told me.
and what all he would really be dealing with if things
went really bad.

how could i help?
if i could tell him anything, what would it be????

i think maybe that this is the stuff that hardens our hearts.
this is the stuff that closes us down, makes us lose our belief,
dries us out, sucks our soul away.

the trick....the deal....the work is to not let it.

yeah, right.
i thought about that.

yeah, right.

but i think that's it.
funny, the bone sigh 'strength lies in the opening of the heart'
came up yesterday several times.

i talked with a friend about how i truly believe that's the most
profound bone sigh i have. it's no easy sentence.

it applies so much here.
true strength is keeping that heart open.

i don't really know how to do it.
in the really hard hard times.
i don't know how to do it.

but i do know we have to try.
i'm not sure how or why i know that.
but i really really do believe that.

i think that's the deal. that's the game.
that's the job.

and i think that's what i want to talk to him about.
which means i'll have to figure out why i believe that.