just a little speck

flicker.flame.1, originally uploaded by impactmatt.

You remember when you were younger? Do you remember the time in the first grade when you looked up at the third and fourth graders and they seemed so huge and impressive. You sat there in awe and wondered if you were ever going to be that old...

I also remember the time when I came back to Montreal after one of my stints in Africa. I had spent almost five years going to a very, very tiny school that consisted of 145 students grades K-12. Upon my return I enrolled in a College that consisted of over 7000 students for a 2-3 year program. I felt like a little flame flickering in the face of a hurricane. It took everything I had to keep burning.

I ended up feeling somewhat similar tonight. I was knocked over by a display of raw emotion. I always a genie is at his most powerful as he escapes his little lamp, finally liberated to unleash all the pent-up cosmic energy; this is what happens when my mother finally speaks. She let loose four decades worth of pain, sadness, and disappointment. There is nothing you can do about it... you just sit there and pray to God that it doesn't get directed at you. You realize that you are small. Then the storm gets worse... the thunder rolls and now I am accused of being selfish (I am, but that is for another post. And it still hurts hearing it.) So now the smallness I feel shrinks me down even further. I am so insignificant at this point small makes fun of me. Then the lighting strikes and I am shocked to find out that she wants to divorce my dad after almost 40 years of marriage. I have now officially disappeared off the face of the map.

I am almost thirty and feel like I am thirteen.