catalyst

I am uncomfortable with the idea that anything I am or anything I do or say can carry enough weight to shift the balance of someone else's life. I don't mean small things like the headache I gave you because I refused to follow instructions, or a sore muscle from where I pulled against it. I mean, for example, it still terrifies me to realize that I was the tipping point in my family's migration south last fall. If it were not for my choices and my voice, my parents would never have left the home I grew up in and ended up living just down the road. The responsibility of this will always press down around me. I can't say it was right, I can't say it was wrong. It was probably right. But the idea that it was me who started the pebble rolling down the hill will never allow me to settle into the change. My fear of unbalancing is (probably) ridiculous. It is (most likely) batshit stupid. But I cannot ever cheerfully accept the rightness of a life that's been edited after running through my filter. I am too inconstant, too unwise. It's me who should be shifting to you.