Going over like a lead doubloon

I want to tell you about what I saw yesterday.  I went to the movies with my oldest so we could see Captain America:  Civil War.  No, I'm not going to tell you about the movie, except to say that I totally geeked out on it just like I do on anything related to comic books (except Green Lantern.  Seriously...) and had a great time with my kid.  But what I saw was during the trailers.  Yes, I am excited about the upcoming Star Trek movie, Rogue One, and Dr. Strange.  But they had this one trailer.  It showed this woman in a VERY haunted house that CLEARLY had a direct conduit to some seriously dark hoodoo.  She walks up the stairs and there's a door rattling.  And the light is on under the door and you can see a shadow, so something is there. But she reaches for the doorknob anyway.  Then someone yells out:  Hey!  Stop!  And she says, What?  Who said that?  And another voice yells:  Don't go in there!  There's a monster in there!  What are you doing?!  And she says, Oh.  Right...thanks!  And she backs away and she walks off and never opens the door.

Here's what I think.  I like to draw analogies and I really can't help it; it's second nature to me, as a writer, to look for symbolism and similarities and it's just part of who I am.  Sometimes we do what that woman in the trailer does.  We know we're in a bad situation.  We can leave any time, but we don't.  We insist on riding it out, even though it scares the crap out of us and it feels wrong and we know we probably shouldn't be reaching for that doorknob anyways.  We stay there, in the shadows, and we suffer, because we think that we will disappoint someone if we try to change things, or try to do things in a way that feels right for us, or that that's our only option.

But it's not.

Have you ever heard that old cliche "if it feels good, do it"?  I wish they would change it to say "If it feels right do it".  Because lots of things feel good.  Eating a bag of potato chips feels good (until it doesn't).  Speeding down the highway at 90 mph while listening to Disturbed feels good (it does.............I imagine..oooh wah ah ah ah..) and all kinds of things feel good.  Doesn't mean you should do them.

Listen, you know if something is right.  It feels great.  Everything falls into place.  Things aren't hard anymore.  They work.  It's like God is giving you a giant thumbs up.  And it's scary too because sometimes it's way different from how you normally do things.  If it's not right you don't feel right.  You feel sad.  Furtive.  Depressed.  Angry.  Scared.  And most of all, frustrated, because you want something that you shouldn't have or you want something to be a certain way when it can't be. 

 So you have to make a choice.  You either stay where you're at, and keep feeling bad, and scared, and worried, and frustrated, or you leave.

I'll bet that woman had a great reason for being in that house.  Maybe she had a curse to break, or she inherited it, or there was a case of Spanish doubloons hidden on the third floor and she had until sundown to find them or they would turn into lead.  Whatever.  The point is, the circumstances weren't right for her to be there, and because of that, whatever it was that she was there to do wasn't going to happen in that moment.

So she left.

Do you think she forgot about it?

Heck no. Spanish doubloons are worth a bloody fortune.

Do you think she'll come back?

Sure.  If all the stars align and God gives the giant thumbs up and the sun is shining and all the bad hoodoo has vanished, she will.  In the meantime, she's going to go have some fun and not worry anymore about the dark stuff.