Crisis Management

When mistakes are made, when apologies are offered and when self-esteem plummets how do we survive. After doing the unthinkable and breaking the laws and rules that govern civilised behaviour we ask ourselves questions. They start at the very lowest rung of the ladder ; do we try to re-climb the ladder or stay at the bottom. If we decide to try to climb HOW do we do it. Shyly and tentatively or brazenly and arrogantly. My impulse is to hide both physically and psychologically. To bury myself where I cannot be seen and pointed at as if the guilt is/was emblazoned on my forehead. Of course the old adage states life must go on and like the counselling sessions where one is asked Have you ever harmed yourself or thought about suicide you sense the immediate reaction. Oh God no. But the question in turn makes you think about whether you could. Like standing on the edge of a cliff and looking down and wondering. Or standing at the edge of a busy road one step from destruction and contemplating Notness. Of not existing. The temptations of a peculiar sort of freedom but they offer no continuing sense of, well, enjoying oneself. And the fact that pleasure is still a possibility rather than an entitlement suggests to me there isa desire not to finish the last chapter with a cliffhanger.

So to face those demons we climb and we do it more slowly, more carefully than we have ever done before. Knowing that the ladder may not be firmly secured and knowing in our loneliness that we must accept the blame for that although in different circumstances behaviour is doubtlessly modified. One step at a time. Gently does it.
The dream is still there. Faded and flickering. HOW is important. WHY is interesting. Although busted it can still be rebuilt. HOPE survives......I hope.