Pen Pal

by J.T. Geissinger

I’ve always had a problem over-empathizing with other people, which is one of the reasons I tend to keep to myself. Everyone else’s emotions piled on top of my own can get suffocating sometimes.

It’s easy to forget that everybody else has problems when you’re so caught up in your own.

But already my desire and my will were being turned like a wheel, all at one speed, by the Love that moves the sun and the other stars.

Hindsight is a real bitch sometimes.

Isn’t that just typical, though? The minute you start talking about feelings, men suddenly go deaf and mute. It’s like their superpower.

A beautiful distraction from the wreckage of my life. The dangerous thing about distractions, though, is how quickly they can grow addicting.

Then I lock myself in my office and force myself to work, ignoring the disturbing fact that I’m drinking wine before noon and trying to pretend it’s normal behavior, when in reality, everybody knows denial about your drinking habits is a total red flag for alcohol use disorder.

“Well, not all spirits are friendly ones. Some of them are vengeful and full of rage.” I chuckle. “So they used to work at the DMV.”

Funny thing, isn’t it, hindsight? It’s memory, but with new understanding tacked on, so that the past means something different than it did before.