Burning Fire Inside (~4 May 2020)

Burning Fire Inside

I have a fire burning deep inside

A white hot ember smoldering and threatening to flashover

IT begins innocently enough with some small, insignificant item, a seemingly inconsequential comment triggering a memory chain: one innocent thought leading to a related thought or memory leading again and again to the next one and the next until the one that knocks the air right out of you surfaces. Instantly transporting you from the safety of your now to the trauma of your past.

IT is insidious, you cannot anticipate it, you cannot plan for it. IT just happens without warning, without compassion, without humanity.

I sit helplessly but necessarily by while my husband relives the horrors of war; his pain overwhelming my heart.

That’s when the smoldering ember within me flashes over and engulfs my entirety. It is at this moment the ember threatens to become a raging inferno.

I hate war, not from a political viewpoint or even an ethical one but from the love of a wife. From the deep understanding of what the experience has done to the man I love.

This is not the kind of toxic hatred that erodes a person but one of simple straightforward logic. It flares at these times of helplessness and dissipates quickly after the storm of memories passes - it does not linger. I do not let it linger.

For I will not be consumed by it. I simply allow it to pass through me. I acknowledge and honor its presence and then move it on its way. This is how I neutralize it’s toxicity; how I continue my joyful life without becoming immersed in it.

Finding joy is my secret weapon to maintaining and fortifying my strength and resiliency which I need to continue to be the foundation my husband needs me to be to be safe.

Music: Lindsey Stirling, "Hallelujah"

~4 May 2020

Keslerjopoetry

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