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The Fires In Our Lives
Fires are both a help and hindrance to humans.
We build fires for our wonderful campfires; sitting around it, we admire its majesty, its unyielding appetite to consume everything around it. As you feel the heat pressing against your face, you look deep into the heart of the fire and realise --- all this began with an insignificant spark.
We create sparks through conflict with those around us in our daily lives. It’s up to the point where you feel that you can no longer comply with the other’s needs and you want to stand up for yourself. You want that person to know that you are no push-over; you want the people around you to understand that it works like a give and take, roundabout kind of way.
More often that not though, this resistance is met with apprehension and contempt. When the other person cannot accept you for who you are, anything you say or do, be it a shrug or a simple “I don’t feel like talking about it” leads to a heated exchange.
“Fine, you want to be like that?”
… … …
“I’m just tired of running away, to put on a façade that isn’t the real me.
I want to show others the real me.”
… … …
You cannot suppress your feelings anymore. You feel that you have given in too much already and you are still met with such harshness.
It’s unfair you say,
"It’s unfair!"
The whisper locked away in your heart is spat out with a defiant roar.
We need fire to light the path when we are engulfed in darkness. But sometimes, the sparks that are created from your conflicts build into a big fire that you cannot control.
You fight back but it consumes you, the frustration escalates and the fire grows and grows and grows.
Or sometimes, you try to extinguish those sparks with your past feelings…
“The past forged our friendship, but the future, it’s just like building a bridge, but whether you can cross it is still unknown.”
You want to continue that part of your past in the present, even when it is unbearable. Should you hold on? Should you let it go…?
We come up against all kinds of fires in our lives, and when we test ourselves and face our fears, we usually don’t get burnt.
One should walk through the fire and try to keep the scars or damage to yourself and others to a minimum. However painful it is, if you succeed in going through with it, it doesn’t seem so bad after all.
Extinguishing that flame does not solve everything, the smoke blinds you, chokes you, your eyes water, but is the cause of your tears entirely because of the smoke you created?
How do you deal with the fires in YOUR life?
Hail Mary.