...wasted breath...

"I'm tired of wasting my breath."

Those words...last night...in a phone call.

Not mine.

Nor the caller's.

Rather, a related message from a third-party...someone tired of 'wasting his breath' in expectation of what was both absolutely due him and realistically never going to happen.

For some reason, those are the words that stuck with me, rattling around in this skull of mine...pinging off the various other detritus of the day.

6 words.

Strung together.

A simple sentence.

Fully loaded.

Bearing the weight of disappointment. Of frustration.  Of neglect and need and willful ignorance.

6 words that triggered in me a flood of response.

Righteous anger...disgust...pity.

And under it all, the ever-present spark of disbelief...the "how can this possibly be?" of taking 2 + 2 and somehow not getting 4.  

"I'm tired of wasting my breath."

The answer to "why not ask...why not try...why not...?"

And, honestly, given the extenuating circumstances of the conversation that prompted the reply?  Completely justified.  Completely appropriate.  Completely expected.

Completely devastating.

We've been there, you and I.  Countless times.  We know the feeling well.

"I'm tired of wasting my breath..."

~explaining my feelings

~defending myself

~hoping to be recognized

~asking for help

~reminding you

~holding you accountable

~teaching you

~trying to help

I lay in bed, hours after that phone call, book in hand...but the pages were empty to sightless eyes as my brain puzzled out all the bits and pieces of fact and apparent fiction.

"I'm tired of wasting my breath."

We've been there, you and I.

I've been there.

Years ago.

Moments ago.

We've our limits, you and I.

The walls we bang our heads against until, one day, we're simply done.

Bruised.

And done.

We've our limits.

Some of them clear and well-defined.  Lit up like neon signs.  Do not pass go!

Others, stealth bombers...sneaking up from beyond the periphery to drop us on our asses in the midst of what we thought heroic effort.

Limits we set for ourselves, founded in self-love and self-care.

Limits of nature and physicality and strength...or weakness.

Limits of experiential knowledge and growth and perception.

Limits that define what we can do and what we can take.

Limits that define what we are able to shake off.

He had reached his, the speaker of those 6 words.

He had reached his limit of what he could do and what he could expect would be done.

He had reached the limit...finally conceding the loss of hope to grim reality.

He had felt the wasted effort of words...of wants and wishes and needs expressed...of his very breath.

And I, a phone call and an intermediary of repeated words away, heard.  Understood.  Recognized the declaration and the desperation and the devastation. 

I heard those words and felt the welling up of emotion...familiar with those feelings from my own experience and righteously indignant that someone else should be similarly impacted.  I heard them, and they burrowed deep within me...finding their kin amongst my own disappointments.  

I heard those words and knew them to be true, even as I wished they were but the stuff of melodrama.

"I'm tired of wasting my breath."

I agree.

I, too, am tired.

I, too, have hit the limit.

I, too, see the waste of my breath and my time and my effort.

You are tired.  And rightly so.

You have not been afforded what you should have been.

You have not been cared for the way you should have been.

You have not been helped and taught and nurtured in any of the ways you should have been.

And they are remarkable...your 6 words.

A statement of fact that you, somehow, inherently or instinctively know that you deserve more, but know, as well, that more is unlikely to manifest.


Your breath has been wasted.

Mine, too.

You are allowed to be tired.

You are allowed to give up.

You are allowed to break.

You are allowed to give in to the considerable odds stacked up against  you.

I am too far away to be of any consequence, and yet, I will be here...hoping...

Hoping that after you give in and give up, that you will be able to get back up again...

That you will start breathing again...

And blow away the pain and the heartache like so many dandelion seeds...

Just Breathe

~Leanna