Sometimes people hurt us. The people we love, the people we let in. That's the trade off after all. There is a saying : When you invite someone into your home, you risk some muddy footprints.
You can ask your guests to wipe their feet. Maybe sometimes they do. Maybe it's most of the time. Every time, your carpet is unblemished, you heart is safe.
Soon, you stop asking. He knows - She likes me to take off my shoes. It becomes habit. Love and kindness are simply the way of things.
But sometimes it rains. Mud sloshes the streets, and his shoes get dirty. Caked with mud. The world doesn't always keep your home's clean floor in mind and it doesn't discriminate.
He comes in and forgets. He forget, and the shoes stay on, the mud caked and drying all over the floor. Precious kindness is no longer a habit. It was taken for granted.
You can scream and beg him to stop trampling all over. You can cry and ask why he didn't think, this one time, why didn't he stop? Why was this visit the one that ended without kindness, without thought, without the safety of a lovers habit?
You can even ask yourself if he did it on purpose. He knows I am nervous, that my heart is fragile, and yet still..."
But it doesn't matter. The footprints stay there. The mud is drying, and the damage is done.
Apologies don't take them away. Even as you clean you know - they will stain. For years, his footprints will be there, maybe just a dull outline, but they will be. Trampling in a gritty memory on the heart.
Maybe you forgive. Maybe you forget. Maybe you move on But every time it rains, you remember how it felt to have him forget to be kind. You might even put down some mats, some padding, some buffer just in case someone decides to be cruel. You have been hurt and now you understand you can't always count on habits of kindness.
And you never stop asking, everyone now, everyone who comes in, into you home, into your heart, to wipe their feet.
Some habits are not broken.
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