Most the time I'm all right with not being too smart. Putting it that way sounds better'n it should. I should say, with being pretty awful dumb. That's what my brothers would've said anyhow, but that don't mean it's not true. It's all right, though. Most the time I don't need to be any smarter'n I am. Like, I don't think being smarter would made it so Beoda wouldn't have given me back the ring, on account that were because of family needing her, and that's a thing even a smart person probably couldn't fix. Might be I'd learn from Miss Brynleigh quicker, but probably not much quicker; keeping horses isn't much about being smart, it's more hard work, the right attitude, and seeing through all the things need to be done.
But sometimes I feel dumber'n usual, and regret it more, and it's mostly when I realize I know something and still don't follow it, don’t listen to my own self. That’s what happened today.
There’s been a lot of hurt and tragedy around me of late. Miss Brynleigh losing her husband, and then Adriellyn finding what come of Wendiwyn and feeling helpless to do anything about it. They’re not the same hurt but there’s things alike in them, and one the most important parts of that is the same thing as I been telling myself about what come of my visit to the Thane, with me not being a Man of the Mark no more. It’s how hurts never go away; they just get behind you, and instead of standing there staring at them, you turn your eyes ahead and move forward, so they get smaller and smaller, and what’s ahead of you gets bigger.
And then when Beoda gave me back my ring, I plum forgot all that. Been spending the last week sulking. Most the days I didn’t do nothing save what I had to — rise, clean, work, eat, and sleep, the whole time trying not to think. Not to feel. But what that means is I'm not taking a step away, a step forward. My hurt's not the same as Miss Brynleigh's nor as Adri's, but I were standing by it all the same.
Took Miss Brynleigh coming to see if I were all right, finding me up on the roof with the stone from my funeral cairn what my pa gave me for luck, afore I could hear my own words. I reckon she were trying to help me with my hurt, once she finally heard about it, and I were trying to help her with hers; and was a moment when I realized what I was saying to her is what I had to be saying to myself. It were like opening the door in a dark house and the sun coming in sudden-like.
Made myself go down the tavern and talk to folk, and tell folk as knew of the engagement of the breaking off, and apologize to Adri for being a bad host. Wouldn't've thunk as I'd been sulking on the roof a few hours earlier; I even got to joking a bit, and telling tales, and asking Mister Aeroden about Gondor, and eating half a meat pie like I ain't eaten in a week.
Don't mean I won't be thinking about what was to be and won't, later when it's dark, and hurting; but I took the first step forward. Every day will be another, and it'll be farther behind me. If only I'd listened to myself, I could been doing that all along.
