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Best Step Up

Even among those around me, I have been given much, and my good fortune, my privilege, my many advantages are manifest.

And these advantages make it easy to be blind. Because of who I am, and what I look like, life presents me, over and over, with an easy path, should I elect to tread on it. And that temptation can be overwhelming. And to take it is to sleep on my feet, and make the world I stand in smaller and meaner and worth so much less.

But the harder path, the one that does not look like a path, is the one where all the life happens, where the anesthetic of easy, easy existence wears off, and clouded eyes become clear. It's full of sharp edges, and ugly truths, most especially about one's self, and it is easy, easy to retreat again.

But those who have loved me have taught me well. They have not allowed me to be small, and they have shown me the value of that harder path, even as I stumble along it.

If I bark my shins and wander, bloodied, away from that smooth road, I do so in gratitude. I am surrounded by those who would teach me, if I have the wisdom to listen. And for me, one who has been given so much, there are few gifts greater than that.
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