Have you ever felt the ache?

Not just, an ache, so simply and easily defined. But *the ache* that fills your chest and head, rendering you helpless but to lay in bed and weep but you have nothing left to sob out and relieve your suffering. It throbs within you, hoping to tear you apart and you wish that it would.

You cry until dry, you wish you could die but your energy is drained. It leaves you a shell, a zombie, the walking dead. Sleep may haunt you, it may taunt you. It fills you with thick, burning, emptiness. It might be one day cleansing, but not the moment you feel it. You can't speak, you can't eat and the darkness isn't soothing enough.

You feel that you could sob forever...and maybe you do for a long long time. But it wears you and tears you down. You run out of feeling. No room for anything else.

I felt that way every day for a long time.

I defined it as this. I spoke to a friend on the phone and asked him the same question. We spoke for quite awhile and in the background on his end he played a song, over and over and over.

It is called "Watermark" by Enya. I taught myself to play it on the piano.

The time has passed a long ways. I think of my friend and wonder what he is doing, since it's not being with me. Does he remember that conversation? Or any others we had? It doesn't ache the same. It's changed and found a doorway to sear through. Different ways to vent, or expunge the hell inside.

But I looked back on why I ached then, and could not understand. Many of the things that hurt me so I am not hurt by now and I even condescend to the memory of myself. Why did I let those things get me so down? Why did I worry so much and let some things slip away from me? Yet then those things were everything. Those reasons were as firm and meaningful as any commandment from God.

I think if that is the case for Dylan and Eric at Columbine, I can begin to see their drive. If they thought that their hurt was everything to them and were being consumed by self made pain, then they were weak as well. They could not tolerate it. They exacted revenge on the ache and left it for many other people. They gave it away.

I can begin to comprehend. It does not excuse what they did, it does not prevail justice on the victims. It is merely a window opened for me that I might see better. That I've felt that, and understand certain things about it gives me an upper hand. It does no good for them now, but it might somewhere down the road for someone else.

There are things changed and memories are all that remain of my muse and inspiration then.

But where I live now, some of them are quite clear and refreshing. (thought with a gentle and knowing smile)

I love those memories, I loved that ache. Some things don't change...

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