Be patient with me please, as this is my first attempt at this. The title? It's indicative of our life, not because it's an involuntary action either. Our days, at least mine anyway, are comprised of moments where I just inhale and walk away. Never seeming to expel the moment in time I sucked into my lungs. When this happens, be damn sure that whatever it was I inhaled was rather unpleasant. Like getting caught on top of sun-baked road kill in heavy traffic without air conditioning. You can help but inhale, but you don't want to exhale due to the fact that you will definitely have to inhale yet again at some point. The inability for me to exhale when someone regales me with bad news or a situation confronts me and I can't even speak, I just inhale and walk away bewildered and confused. Does that make me weak? I suppose so. Let's just label it passive to be safe. So now what does it take to afford me the chance to finally exhale. To let it all back out. To clean out the lungs and get the color back in my face so people stop asking me why I look, well, a bit off. A funny joke, a winning lotto ticket, a baby's smile, a hug from the Mrs., a good hard workout at the gym...Get the idea. Every day someone might say something off the cuff that strikes you to the core. Or in recent months we turn on the news and see coverage of one mind blowing tragedy after another. And if any of you are like me, you inhale it in and walk away making a feeble attempt at processing what you heard and/saw. It's my contention that passivity is our problem. We inhale and walk away a if to tell ourselves that everything will get better in time, without our intervention. Even when the situation directly affects me. I can't summon the strength to defend myself let alone my fellow Americans coast to coast. I will handle my own self confidence issues at some point. But as Americans, it's time we find what it is going to take for this country to be able to finally exhale. Enough walking away. Enough turning a blind eye. We are all blue in the face these days. Not because blue is one of our nations colors, but because that's what happens when we inhale and hold our breath like we did as kids.
