Never Trust A Good Thing

Can’t say exactly why or when it sunk in, but it did. While most get ecstatic about exciting news, a new house, a new job, a new car, a new dog, a new love, I feel dread. Not like I still haven’t done all those things and experienced a sprinkle of hope and a small side of happy. Still, it quickly fades because the reality sets in. The setup is complete, I’m on the hook and when the fisherman on the other end is ready, as much as I fight on the line, he’ll reel me in, plunge his knife in my guts, pull them out, cut the meat from my bone, fry it up and discard my head and spine into an old plastic grocery bag. He’ll relish each morsel he’s torn from me sweetened by the pain of the hope of a good thing.  I don’t get too excited or at least not for long. A good thing only happens to amplify the pain when it is taken from you.

That’s been my experience. I’ve made my peace with it. Anticipation is met with skepticism and shallow investment from my scarred muscle. It’s like the great poet, Lemmy, says in the great ballad, “Every way out, brings you back to the start
Everyone dies to break somebody’s heart.” There is always heartbreak. Everything we tether our hearts too will eventually lead to its rupture and collapse. Every hope leads to a moment of despair. Every good thing, in time, becomes poison.

Never trust a good thing. Never believe that happiness is an answer. Remember every pain and realize the good things are temporary reminders. All pains start with hope and happiness, so I make myself content with the goodness within knowing the world outside my heart will only disappoint. I continue to hope, but I weigh the value of its promise of joy against its inevitable delivery of pain. My heart will break again and again and again and again until it stops. That is the good, that is its promise.