heartache and footwear

"Fear is pain arising from the anticipation of evil." - Aristotle

You know how sometimes you're in the middle of an awful situation, and you want so badly for it to get better, but you know it's just going to get awfuller? And the most you can do is wait for the other shoe to drop, patiently if you can. But the anticipation - it's the worst part, really.

And I'm impatient. If the shoe is dropping, then I will do everything in my power to get the shoe back up where it belongs (where exactly does this shoe drop from, anyway?), and if that won't work, then what I want more than anything in the world is to rip off the band-aid in one quick jerk - to let that shoe fall, quick and thorough and decisive, and never look back.

But this shoe, it wouldn't fall. It was far past the point of no return, and no one could predict anything but a swift downward spiral for the little foot covering, but it held on by one tenacious filament. And I didn't know whether to love that gossamer strand of hope or to exercise the only option left to me and snip it clean through with my sharpest implement. So I alternated, directing all of my energy first in one direction and then the other.

And then it fell, not swiftly, but decisively, and finally I can grieve. Finally I can stop anticipating the pain and start working through it. And finally I have some say in things. I decide how to live now.