That Project Pat line has been bopping around the back of my mind all day. I’d like to believe it’s random, but I doubt that. Calling it by name, I’d say it’s intuition. A hundred little whispers of truth I haven’t found the courage to accept. I mean, who doesn’t feel like like a hero in the proverbial cape? Something about swinging it around the shoulders puffs the chest. Who doesn’t love a good Samaritan story? Maybe that’s just what I tell myself. Denial in disguise.
I used to wish I could see into the future. I wanted the magical power of mind (energy) reading. I wanted to see things before they happened. Now, I do everything short of gauging my own eyes to unsee things before and even as they happen in real time. Funny how that works. How you can be so sure you want a thing until you actually experience it. How many wishes we would unwish if we could.
Knowing is a lonely thing. And sometimes the harder you try to share it, the lonelier it gets. That’s how it goes. Still, I’d lasso a scarlet cape around my shoulders and harness my power to right the wrongs before they land if I could.
Is that really such a bad thing? It hurts like hell to watch the ones you love learn the hard way. Who wouldn’t forge themselves a shield to protect their loved ones from a tower before it falls too close to home? It’s hard to watch someone you love suffer, even if they rigged the trap themselves. Sometimes, my stomach isn’t strong enough to witness. Empathetic reflexes reach for the cape. But my ancestors have been slapping my wrists lately: Aht! Aht! Don’t you go tending to them gardens that ain’t yours to keep. You got enough work to do in your own. When they get good and tired, they’ll tend to themselves.
You can’t save people from their own work. Consequences neither. You certainly can’t save folks from their karma. You only stunt their growth and bottleneck their own when you try. There’s a fine line between empathy and enabling. Discerning the difference will save you a lot of heartache. That’s the lesson at hand: Loving people means trusting them to tend to themselves without my meddling. To busy myself with my own tending. The towers will fall whether others take heed to the warnings or not. Even if they dismiss the warnings, I have a right to save myself.
—Journal entry, October 27, 2021