(Vulnerability) Hangover Cure

Did you pull a Harry Bailey? Go too far
Too fast on the mouth of your shovel, straight through the ice?
Don’t panic. In this movie there’s always a George
To plunge in and save you, no matter the risk.

I’ve been there. That’s daring greatly. That’s the price.
Just let your liver process what you did,
Whatever it was. You were right to try, even if
You decide to do it differently next time.

Sweet old Clarence puts it all on George,
“Every man on that transport died,” in the world
Where Harry’s dead because George was never born.
But if both Bailey boys had stayed at home,
If Harry had taken his turn at the Savings & Loan,
If he’d played it safe, those men would still be dead.
No heroes, no love stories–the movie would end sad
If we Harry Baileys didn’t always push
too hard, too fast, too loud, too soon, too much.

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Since this is post about practicing empathy, I will save for another post my current progress in working on shame & vulnerability & daring greatly & then suffering multiple vulnerability hangovers. I will just dedicate this to a friend who was brave enough to admit she was having a vulnerability hangover & say thank-you, thank-you, thank-you to Brene Brown. (And also I need to learn how to do diacritical marks on Word Press.)

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Also note, this serves as further evidence for how HARD it is for me to write a sonnet in 14 days rather than an hour.  I wrote this in the bathtub in the back pages of I Thought It Was Just Me. And the water didn’t even have time to get cold.