And so here’s the thing

I’ve always had a really hard time trying to come up with headlines for things. I seriously contemplated my deserving of a spot in Concordia’s Journalism school when it came to my feature writing class. I could bang out the actual story no problem. Ask me to name the thing? Forget it. I became a nail-biting wreck.

It logically follows then, that I had a ridiculously hard time trying to name this site. Everyone seems to have such clever, witty and though-provoking ideas, and I was drawing such a blank. Or, such a grey. A lot of things really are grey to me, and I find that as the older I get, the less sure I am of many things, situations and people –even the ones I thought I had all figured out.

Since I was a teenager, I kept a sort of mental tally, developed and refined first with friends over bowls of buttered popcorn and plastic cups of Diet Coke, later over glasses of wine in smoky bars. The list included things I truly believed I knew for sure, about myself, about others, and my inevitable collide with those ‘others.’ Top on the list: infidelity. Would never accept it. This was agreed upon with vigorous nods from friends, waving cigarette-clutching and slightly drunken hands, declaring, ‘oh my God NEVER.’ Second: violence from a partner. Non-negotiable. ‘I’d be out of there SO fast…I’d make his head spin…I’d knock him back one…I’d tell all his friends…I’D tell his mother.’ Right. Check. The list went on to include things such as never getting involved with a married man, never sacrificing career for a man, etc, etc.

Now, as I look back and remember those heady days of declaration, I feel somewhat humbled. Who was I, who were we, to pass judgement on what the future would hold for us, and ultimately what our responses would be to those instances? As I recall that list, I shamefully admit that I’ve had to cross some of those items off, because I didn’t initially live up to my own expectations. There was always a ‘but’ always a ‘it’s different this time,’ always an excuse, a justification, a rationalization to make it be ok –to paint the grey over with a gloss of pure white.

It is all grey to me. I feel grey to me. And yet, I think that maybe what this really means is that as I start to discard some of my fast-held convictions, I’m replacing them with acceptance, for myself, for the friend who went back and went back again, for the family member who crossed my weakened and faltering boundary, for the man who said he just wasn’t strong enough.

After all, to be human is to err, and then to do it again, harder, faster and stronger than the first time.