The Cure

We think we get over things.

We don’t get over things.

Or say, we get over the measles,

But not a broken heart.

We need to make that distinction.

The things that become part of our experience

Never become less a part of our experience.

How can I say it?

The way to “get over” a life is to die.

Short of that, you move with it,

let the pain be pain,

not in the hope that it will vanish

But in the faith that it will fit in,

find its place in the shape of things

and be then not any less pain but true to form.

Because anything natural has an inherent shape and will flow towards it.

And a life is as natural as a leaf.

That’s what we’re looking for: not the end of a thing but the shape of it.

Wisdom is seeing the shape of your life without obliterating (getting over) a single instant of it.

-- Alfred Huffstickler