The Mercury / Friday

I’ve long observed that life is simultaneously beautiful and brutal.

Of course there are seasons when each can be amplified.

The two hold hands and are dancing around our lives and our families like unlikely lovers.

The family you see wandering the mall hand-in-hand (beautiful) – you are aware their beloved, vivacious grandmother has cancer (brutal).

That couple you saw eating dinner and watched them laughing and talking and looking into each other’s eyes and appear to be the perfect couple (beautiful): what you don’t know is that each is married to someone else and neither party yet knows it (brutal). The connection you witness is beautiful, yes, but the brutality awaits its cue.

My own sons are a perfect expression of my theory: they are beautiful boys, both highly functional in so many ways.

It’s unlikely either will ever know his mother.

There’s much that’s very beautiful about our lives together and I am dizzily grateful, but the brutal element is always there and it won’t go away.

I am not too sure I want it to.

To think it is beauty alone is denial – we share a fallen world.

Brutality without beauty is hopelessness.

We need both and the truth is, we have no real choice in the matter.

Posted on March 25, 2019 at 5:40 am in Difficult Relationships   |  RSS feed |   Reply   |   Trackback URL