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Don't fuck this up.   Don't fuck this up.

I'm too old for this shit.   Funny at the time and the man with the mullet agreed.   Takes on a new meaning now.  

I always wonder how my mom made it to 75 with the last 35 years not even including a cup of coffee with a man.   At some point, it begins to feel like its a genetic thing.  And then you just accept your coffee alone from the drive thru.

I stopped being good to me.  Going through the motions of life.  I still love myself, I said silently.  I rejected grace and all of her follies.  Mercy is unconditional love, I read.   And I can't stop thinking about that.   So, here I am.   Because I won't fuck this up.   I won't fuck this up.

I stood outside, peering through the window of a dying man.   He hid in the closet; waiting for me to disappear.  I made the mistake and did just that.   I think about that all the time.   Kindness and cruelty are cousins, I thought.  I still do.

I want to ask forgiveness for everything.  Even when it't not called for.  I talk to you when you're not around.   I have for so long.   I don't yearn for people, usually, I convinced myself.    Just mercy.  I can't fuck this up.  I can't fuck this up.  

I run by mirrors.  I avoid first person personal pronouns if possible.   I find pleasure in really simple things.  Like alliteration.   And everyone moment with you.  Hope is a dangerous drug, I used to tell myself.   So, I would go cold turkey.   But I won't fuck this up.  I won't fuck this up.   

Every part of me knows this is right.   For the first time.   I don't use words and sentences lightly.  Even when I am wordy.   I love that you don't mind.   

That dying man sat with me in the lobby of a place we had our hair cut.  I was reading Seventeen magazine; learning about prom dresses and menstruation.  Twenty minutes earlier, he was hugging the staff at rehab and said, "goodbye".   I thought he simply meant he would never be back.   I learned a month later, he meant this life.

He leans into me as I am reading horrific tales of relationships from the Seventeen demographic and he says, "I will not fuck this up.   I will not fuck this up".

He did.

Mercy is unconditonal love.   And that includes being kind to ourselves.

I can't fuck this up.