Complex Simplicity

She didn't believe in hate. Or for 35 years she told herself she didn't. She entertained envy, understood avarice, even practiced sloth. But hate? So she told herself this all-consuming emotion was envy so she could sleep nights. Envy of the people who floated with seeming simplicity through the day to day. Envy of those on the continent she could not breach from her desolate island, tenuously tethered off rocky shores.

Living 10 miles from where she grew up, in the town that rose from the ashes time and again, she yearned for more. She drifted along lit sidewalks moving through the din of motorcycle engines, wreaths of smoke, roars of laughter. As she passed the same coffee shops spilling over with regulars and the thump-thump-thumping bass of the lone pretend nightclub, her spirit sunk among the revelry. It was a tarnished town, costumed for an unknown masquerade ball, longing to be something more. She wanted to set her island adrift from the shores of this place – or, barring that, pluck out the thing inside her that caused this unhappiness; to kill the anomaly that made her desire complications, unable to find joy in the weekly routine of seeing Sally and Bill every Saturday night sipping java and enjoying the latest 70s glam-rock cover band.

This unnamed thing inside her threatened to consume her, tearing at her flesh with it's jagged, broken teeth. She fought back, not bravely but with cowardice, and not at the emotion, with which she'd formed a nice, symbiotic relationship - her longest in years - nor at the root cause of her pain, but at those around her. Taken to the edge and beyond by the little people she'd spawned, testing their limits as they broke hers, her children were on the front lines of this war - and often on the opposing battlefield. The images of the nurturing mother, ideal in her patience, never-wavering in her love, lay at her feet, shredded bedding to catch her tears. Certain she was unfit, she wished for an anonymous guardian to take her precious little creatures away, to the continent of warmth and safety that lay beyond the horizon, off the coast of her island shore.

But there was no guardian angel. There was no respite, and the hope that it would get easier faded by the hour behind the fog that surrounded her. So she resorted to hate disguised as envy in the hopes that she could feel the pain without it destroying her. Thus far she'd won the battle, but lately she was in danger of losing the war. Once certain she'd merely misplaced the "How-to-Survive-Life Survival Guide," she now wondered if she'd ever owned a copy. Unpacking box after box in the new life she'd rented for the three of them, she tore off the packing paper seeking the answer in one of the dusty tomes she'd carted across the years and state lines.

Of course offers of help came, along with smiles of understanding, reassuring hugs, the gentle pat of pity and helplessness on her shoulder from a loved one. She knew her isolation was self-imposed, as much a mirage as a reality. But try as she might, she could not convince herself that they understood, or that her pain and disappointment wasn't somehow deeper and larger than any they had experienced. Her rational self chastised her childish whims and inability to reach out instead of burrowing deeper inside. Memories of the quiet confidence of her former self taunted her, and she both longed for and loathed the girl she once was, quietly naive and blissfully ignorant of the lied she lived.

But life was a puzzle waiting to be solved, and she'd always hid a piece or two just to make it more interesting. "Why do you make it so hard for yourself? It doesn't have to be this hard to be happy." How could she explain: it's not the complications that she finds difficult, it's the simplicities. And it's not complication she seeks, but complexity. Complex people, complex situations - these things she finds endlessly fascinating. Without a desire for complexity, she never would have become an accidental tourist, letting her heart fly away in sun-drenched parks and on mist-covered bridges 4,000 miles from home. And there her heart stays, across the ocean on a continent she cannot reach, it remains in his care as his is in hers. A complex situation to be sure.

Perhaps that's how the darkness crept up on her - complexity gave way to complication and it's well known that complication always comes armed, while complexity is a more "make love not war" occurrence. Maybe complication deserves to feel the wrath of her hatred and not simplicity. Another puzzle she could ponder, if she could find the reserves to do so.

And then, an A-HA moment occurred: she would wage a campaign against complication, while embracing complexity. She would marshall her resources and unleash her fury on complication. Complexity could still rule the day. Her island would become part of The Archipelago of Complexity as she threw off one complication after another, not seeking to simplify but to find a complex world she could inhabit. As the Archipelago grows, she'll hop along the chain to that far away continent where she will find her heart, reunite with her love and be among the "normal people" who move through life with little effort, courtesy of the pocket-sized Survival Guide they all possess. Yes, she would be a continent dweller, smiling children in tow, head held high, no longer hating simplicity but embracing complexity. She would triumph!

There she was, poised to wage a new war against a clearly defined foe. Invigorated by this new way forward she started to become aware of her surroundings – the chill of the night air bursting through the screen door, the hum of the light bulb from the floor lamp beside her, the newscaster's voice through her Dolby surround sound speakers..."A tragedy unfolded in the northern part of the city tonight as a single mother of three shot her children while they slept and then turned the gun on herself. Police are not releasing the names of the victims and as of yet no motive is known for the murder-suicide."

Turns out we're all just islands after all.