Aftermath

Prelude

I've spent some time reflecting recently on my present situation after having been laid off from my most recent job after roughly 12.5 years. I've also drawn from previous hardships, both of mine and of others I observed, to glean a few observations about what adversity can do to a person and how that person might respond.

I hope you enjoy "Aftermath." Thanks for reading.

Best regards,

-Kevin

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Aftermath

(This is the meat-and-potatoes part. Despite the headings that may suggest a pattern, this title was actually the first thing I wrote, as you can discover below in the afterword.)

You’ve heard the saying: What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. And in some cases, there’s truth to be found in it. Truth unlike a verifiable outcome or certified test result. More like a wrecking ball that’s just missed its mark and left damage in its wake, yet you're still there.

Truth that sneaks up on you, slowly, between cracks in the everyday. When you’re having breakfast. While doing the dishes or folding the laundry or walking the dog. When you’re driving to that first job interview and all the lights are turning green. When you start to believe things are going to be okay.

Other times, it’s hard to find any truth in the saying. When you’re lying awake at night and nothing makes sense. When the bills keep piling up. When you’re driving to your fifteenth job interview and all the lights are turning red. When you just want to nestle in your blanket and binge-watch your favorite show. Or when you want to curl up into a ball and pretend it didn’t happen, tell yourself that it doesn’t matter - that you’ll be better, stronger, faster. But you can’t find the cracks, can't see the light.

It‘s in the aftermath that you find yourself either emboldened or defeated, the hindsight that is all too clear, the illusion of control. It’s in how you weather life’s occasional cruelty. Will you rise or fall, succeed or fail, emerge or retreat? And while you can’t change the past, the future is there for you, calling, waiting for your response.

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Afterword

Now, you should know that I enjoy a good pun and that my favorite writing prompts are simple words or phrases I hear or that pop into my head for whatever reason. Last week, I heard the word "aftermath" on some TV show I was watching, and the word kept popping into my head, and I thought: I should write a story/poem involving that word, but with some twist at the end to work in the phrase "after math" - as in, "after math, I went to Physics." But after further reflection, I decided to write a more serious poem, keeping the title.