How Do We Get Clean?

More specifically; how do I get clean? How do I move on from something that so much was invested in without reeking of it still. When my hands feel like they're caked in remnants of what they've torn apart - heavy and useless.

I've developed a habit of people watching. Creepy? You do it too. 

But what i learned tonight sitting and the local Cigar Club, a few hours before my set started and people i knew started to show up, was strange. You see normally these revelations are suppose to be had while gazing at the stars like an emo kid, or standing at the edge of the Grand Canyon or one of the worlds many other wonders. Not in a dim-lit smokey bar lined with dark red leather and mahogany chairs. But still, i sat watching the people that walked in, and listened like a Private I to their conversations that seemed so petty and far removed from ME and MY world. You see, my advice to any of them would've been "get over it". "This is such a small loss an petty chapter of your life".

Advice I'm slow to follow.

But why? Why should i be? Why is it so much harder for me to wash this mess off of my hands? Because i don't want to. The question i keep asking myself is "How do we get clean again when it's more than a memory?" And the answer that kicked me in the teeth tonight was honestly not startling. More annoying, because i know it's been there this whole time and i know that i saw it a long time ago. I just don't like it because it puts the blame on me. 

This won't leave me because i won't stop carrying it with me incessantly. 

I can't wash my hands of the stain because i keep rubbing them in it. I can't get this scent off of my mind because it's all i want to remember. So how do we get clean? We set it down, walk away and wash our hands. Clean. Ready to be immersed in the next mess. Hopefully the next will be a stain that we can live with peacefully and happily for the rest of our lives here, and a fragrance that we're dying to wake up to every morning that we wake up and breathe out the name of our creator. Though reluctantly it may be.

So i actually get up from my chair. I leave my things there with my new unsuspecting "observ-ees". I go to the bathroom and actually wash my hands. Not because they needed it, but because i did. And i kid you not, they feel lighter. Less cumbersome. Ready to be made of use.