It's better 'cause it's real

            There was once a boy. He made some mistakes in his youth and thereafter was haunted by them; always measuring his accomplishments by his guilt and falling short. His mistakes were, to be honest, quite bad, but the forgiveness he had received was total. What he had done had put a stain on his conscience, and all the scrubbing in the world could not purge it.

            There was then, a lady. She was especially lovely. Her youthful mistakes consisted of some improprieties with boys. She succumbed to the herd instincts of high school-ers and made decisions she quickly regretted. Her mistakes were of a more common breed than the boy's, but she judged herself just as harshly.

            Both these youths had a time of repentance. His, a summer of unemployment, her's a year of boarding school. What he learned from this time was that his large intelligence and gregarious nature was a façade for a broken and filthy human being. His analytical mind became consumed with seeking out and eradicating his pride. Pride was the enemy, because the evidence showed his guilt, and anything denying that was folly. He was a better man for this, but he was also more cautious and more self-deprecating than was wholly necessary.

            Now the lady. Her boarding school time taught her that she could be the leader of herds and not just the follower. She had the skills and personality to teach and to lead, and (had she only known it sooner) the logic to see a better way. Unfortunately her dalliances had cost her. She knew she had caused many men pain because of her disinterest. She resolved to be more distant in the future. It was still years before she would be reunited with her heart. (You see, as a young girl her heart had been broken by pain that she could not comprehend. She dealt with it the only way she knew, which was suppression. Thus as a high school graduate she was so successful in her task that she didn't even know there was, or had ever been, this thing called "pain". She didn't know, and yet, she was constantly aware of it.)

            This is why, when they met, and the younger, handsome, outwardly-innocent boy fell for the unattainable beauty, she sat him down and said, "No."

            She felt he would be tainted by her impurity, that he would not have liked her had he known. Perhaps he knew he would be shot down and it was an exercise in humility. It was the first in a string of rejections for him, not the first for her (him being rejected and her doing the rejecting). He had what will one day be known as the "Destroyer Complex", that is, a methodology wherein the individual constantly sets themselves up to be ripped to shreds by the one on whom they have bestowed love.

            And so, after many years, while he was barking up many wrong trees, she began to feel again. She finally cried for the brother she had lost so many years before. Grief bubbled up from places she hadn't known existed. She came into her own then, she realized the potential she had to help others. But when does a great leader or helper stop leading and helping and let themselves be led and helped? Her consciousness of all the hearts she had broken humbled her. She tried to ask herself if she would have answered them differently if she had a do-over, and she tried to answer herself with "no." But I think she regretted one or two. Certainly at least one.

            This questioning and regret led to one important action. when our not-so-young, still quite handsome boy let loose his destroyer complex on her for a second time, she hesitated with her "no." She came up with lots of reasons why it was unreal, and it mightn't work and the logic was unsound. And yet she hesitated.

            In reality the great guy and girl rarely get together. Sometimes the good guy and girl do, often the bad guy and girl unite their inadequacies, But the Greats tend not to. People are like gems. The purest have been through fire, they have had all their ore chipped away quite painfully. If a jewel were animate, would it be grateful for the cleansing, or only embarrassed of it's previous state? Would it realize it's current beauty or only remember how it began? And would the hardest diamond believe that a pairing with malleable gold could be anything more than a dream?

          Apparently, yes.