Bridges

A bridge is burned, and all that is left is ashes. Can it ever be rebuilt? If it is rebuilt, can it ever be the same? We spend most of our lives building up and tearing down bridges, constantly changing the connections we have between the people around us. We meet new people and forget about old ones. Some people are able to build more and more, while others have to torch one before something new can be erected. And throughout the course of time, we spend more time riveting steel and suspending wood, swinging wrecking balls and lighting fires than most cities.

The idea of a burned bridge is something a little more serious than just drifting away from people you were once close with. There are hundreds of people that, over the course of the last 12 to 15 years, I have, at some point, established a relationship with, whether it was someone I sat next to everyday or someone whose hand I held late at night. So while the depth of these relationships vary across the board, not all of them have made it to the present. (See Save the Date). But I can't classify anyone no longer close to me as falling into a disconnected abyss, bridge after bridge collapsed and destroyed. I would more or less put them in a group of simply abandoned and unkempt bridges. Ones strewn with moss and vines, ones that, while may look like the path of most resistance, or the scary, dark, wooded fork in the road, the bridge is still standing. And with a little maintenance, can once again burden the weight of constant tread.

A burned bridge means someone carried the torch and severed the ties. Someone set off the fuse. Lit the match. The disconnect that ensues is motivated. Someone is making an active decision to remove a presence, a presence that is no longer welcome. And what does this accomplish?

Well, if that presence constantly negatively affects your daily life, then remove it. If that presence physically hurts you, from hitting, from not eating, from not sleeping, from self-inflicted pain, then remove it. If that presence creates an atmosphere non-conducive to a healthy life style, then remove it. Anything along these lines, then there stands a bridge that should be demolished. For this, one less connection is a good thing.

But aside from that, from seriously damaging figures that you come in contact with, is there any real reason to knock out the support of something that brings people together? There are people that have done things that I don't agree with, and people that haven't treated me well, and people that have lied to me, and deceived me, and people that have ignored me, and forgotten me, and there are people that for the most part, don't really deserve my best effort, my compassion, my presence in their lives. But is any of that enough to truly allow me to turn my back if a situation in the future calls for confrontation, commitment, or common conversation? Have any of them wronged me to the point of no return?

I take bridges very seriously. It takes a lot for me to start swinging at the bricks beneath the bridges that connect me to the rest of the world I know. Because a bridge that has crumbled will never look the same. It might serve the same purpose, and someone can still walk from one side to the other, but arched or suspended, those that walk across will always be reminded of the rubble below. The shattered cement blocks and singed wood splinters will forever decorate the landscape below.

Moss can be trimmed. Dust can be swept. Dirt can be cleaned. Vines can be removed. But the history of a crumbled bridge can never trimmed or swept or cleaned or removed. Think twice before you detonate.