Someone's Going to Emergency, Someone's Going to Jail

Lately I havent been able to stop listening to the Don Henley song "New York Minute." Really it's just the first two verses that really hook me in and after that the song never really let's go of its grip. The verses go like this:

Harry got up
Dressed all in black
Went down to the station
And he never came back
They found his clothing
Scattered somewhere down the track
And he won't be down on wall street in the morning

He had a home
The love of a girl
But men get lost sometimes
As years unfold
One day he crossed some line
And he was too much in this world
But I guess it doesn't matter anymore

The song goes on to state that in a "New York minute everything can change." I think that the brutal honesty of the song is its strong point. That life is flying by at a speed we can't wrap our heads around--so we need to take every chance we can get to do what we love. In a Six Feet Under episode a character once raised this sentiment by stating "You can't take a picture of this." No matter what you do--nothing lasts forever.

Now what got me hooked on the song is the West Wing episode "Someone's Going to Emergency, Someone's Going to Jail," where one of the main characters, Sam, has been working long hours because he found out that his father carried on an affair for years with his mother. It's an understated episode that starts off with a beautiful montage of Washington DC at dawn set to the Don Henley tune. But I didn't necessarily take anything about "fathers" per say from the episode. What I found more intriguing is how heartbreaking it can be to find out the truth--in anything. Sometimes the most damaging thing to a person's heart is to find out that the things you believe in are not necessarily true--or in some cases may actually just be wrong. I guess the idea of "ignorance being bliss" is really true, to a certain extent.

Would I rather my parents hadn't told me the details of their divorce? Maybe, it hurts to think of them as flawed human beings. But what happens when I find out the truth as I get older? What happens when I realize that the morals that I modeled my life after, never really existed in the first place? The truth always comes out and when it does--it can be devastating. I am proud of my parents and who they are. I guess all we can do is try our best to be as honest and as good--because we have no idea how much a facade can hurt someone.