TASTES LIKE BURNING

23rd June 2012     "TASTES LIKE BURNING”

Right now Colorado is on fire.  I mean all of Colorado.  Well not quite literally every square foot but there are 9 separate fires up & down the Rocky Mountains.  The fires have destroyed hundreds of structures, caused thousands to be homeless from emergency evacuations & property loss, and crisped over 100,000 acres collectively.  The fires have threatened a multitude of small & large towns, to include Estes Park, Colorado Springs, & Fort Collins; which is where I live.  West of the Fort Collins area is the High Park Fire, currently labeled as the 3rd largest & #1 most destructive fire in Colorado history.  Firefighters say this is the fire they hoped would never happen.  Some say the fire almost has a mind of it's own, like some monster that's come & settled in on Colorado.  As soon as the fire looks like it's contained, it changes directions, jumps a fire line, or otherwise goes a little chaotic.  If the fire is a monster then the Firefighters are the heroes.

The Firemen here are working themselves to the bone & certainly doing a great job.  Still, nearly 250 structures have been lost & many of which are peoples homes.  Some people have been really crappy about it too which brought up the thought, "What do you do when a hero fails?" or more specifically "What do you do when a hero fails you?" Another thought: "How do you go on when you fail someone?"  In any of the previous questions we'll assume the hero (whether that was you or some one else) did all they could, gave it there all & still could not succeed.  What did you do? How did you treat them?  How did you treat yourself?

I feel that this one of the hardest things for anyone to deal with.  Forgiveness of self & forgiveness of others is rough; or it can be.  I started this blog with something heroic in mind.  I would love to live a heroic tale!  But things in this world don't always work out as smooth as they do in a story.  More often we'd like to admit, things are painfully not in our control.  For me that is hard to deal with but I'm working on adjusting & forgiving & adapting in moments where I don't make it.  Anybody else have a hard time with this?  Anybody have any tested secrets?