How Could You??

Seriously. I'm shocked, stunned, flabbergasted even.

I really almost don't believe you could do this to me. I say "almost," because I do believe it now. I have no choice. It was staring me right in the face this morning, and there's no denying it.

I don't want to believe it. Don't want to believe that you could let things get to this stage. Don't want to believe that everything I took for granted -- that you would shelter me, protect me -- was just so much wishful thinking.

Maybe I was blissfully ignorant; I've been accused of being in my own world. Others knew, others saw it, and I just had my head in the sand.

But it hit me square in the jaw on the subway, out of the blue.

And I have to face it. Though it hurts me, though had you asked me about it a week ago I would have steadfastly denied it, unable to fathom that you could let me down so, it's true, and it's too late to change it.

I don't generally take much solace in the pity or sympathy of others. But if you weep for me today, you weep for the world.

Because though I may have been the one blindsided this morning, it could just as easily have been you. Or anyone else.

Sometimes the very foundations of our beings, the basic tenets of our ways of life, are shaken (and/or stirred).

I thought you would keep me safe, but reality caught up with me on the delayed 5 train this morning. You didn't keep me safe.

And now I -- all of us -- have to take it.

How could you let this happen?