Slippage

Things erode. This is the natural order of things. The water streams of life wear them away, and in the end we are left something much different than before.

We try to build bulkheads and walls of sandbags, and hope to make it to our end goal with our most precious things somewhat intact before the erosion of our very own life washes down the stream.

But these do not always work, especially when neglect, callous disinterest, and fear paralyze us.

I've seen erosion in two big areas of my life in the last few days and weeks.

I lost a friend merely because of a disagreement over a stupid internet message board. I tried to reason with him, explain my point of view, but the erosion won out in the end.

Callous disregard may have played a part here. How good of a friend could he have been if he was willing to let something so small be enough reason for him to allow the waters to wash away 10 years of friendship.

This is not to say the pieces could not be retrieved from downstream and things rebuilt, but you know how it is, once a thing is broken it can never be the same again.

The other example of erosion is one I cannot talk about here, but suffice it to say the bank underneath a huge structure of my existence is almost completely washed out, and the structure is about to fall into the water. And I cannot fix it alone, but let me assure you I am most certainly alone in this regard.

And the river runs on.