When It All Begins To Crumble

It starts slow. You don’t exactly see it coming but you’re not entirely ignorant of it either. It’s such a slow and detrimental process that I think we try not to see it coming. Something inside us though, something inside us sees what’s up ahead. We know what’s about to happen.

It could be something small that sets it off. Small things have a way of piling up to make big scary monsters of a thing. They slowly eat at us until we cannot contain them anymore and there go the dominoes, one after the other, toppling on top of each other.

No matter what starts it, the crumble is inevitable and one day it’ll just…

Happen.

It’ll be a small push, the thing that sets everything into motion. But that whisper of the wind or push of your pinky will send the first domino tumbling down. Whatever beautiful picture or shape you’ve been trying to make with your dominoes, whatever image you’ve tried so hard to convince others will stick, will fall. Breathlessly, you’ll watch, as everything you thought was permanent becomes dust right before your eyes. There’s nothing you can do to stop it, and everyone else will watch along with you, their sympathies lost because you’re the reason. You’re the reason everything started to fall.

Quickly, you’ll try to pick those pieces back up. “I can fix this! Don’t worry I can fix this!”

I’ll warn you now: you can’t. You can’t fix it immediately. It’ll take time, and it’ll be messy and extremely uncomfortable. Mostly, all of these feelings will be reserved for you, because it’s your job to fix it all. You’re the one who knocked them all over in the first place.

Some dominoes will be lost to you. You cannot put them back into place and you’ll have to leave them behind. This is okay. It’s not ideal, but once you destroy something in such a monumental way there are inevitably some casualties.

Some will go right back to where they were, no questions asked. Your picture will have less holes because of this, be grateful for them.

Some dominoes will take time to reset, because they have bruises or missing shards now. You must be the one to patch up these wounds. It’ll take time for these to heal but eventually they’ll fit back into place, if not a little worse for the wear.

Don’t hate yourself when they all start to fall, when it all starts to crumble. Accept that it’s happening, and plan for how you’re going to put everything back together. Learn from what happened. Grow, and be better the next time.