taking it

For two days I have had in my head the parting words of Professor Kearl. Absorb negative externalities. In this one line he reconciled Ayn Rand and the Gospel, something I have struggled to do since the day I discovered both were true. But the line keeps circling my head, during times when I have no thoughts save nothingness, where I can't make heads or tails of anything. Then the words come back. Absorb negative externalities. It's a tribute to my personality quirks that this phrasing means more to me than "turn the other cheek." When my emotions got too heightened, when the mental rantings became too articulate with ever shortened vocabulary words, the phrase would come as a gentle reminder and calm things down. Perhaps because it appealed to my rational side. At one point to still my increasingly rapid breathing (sure signs of emotions to follow), I kept repeating the sentence to myself. I can take it, I told myself. I'd rather take it, I added. If I take it, if I keep it inside, no one else gets hurt by it. I can take it. I took out the trash at work, talking to myself as I walked with my hands full of bulging black trash bags. Take it, I said. Just take it, I repeated. TAKE IT! I screamed in my mind and I threw the bags into the dumpster. I almost collapsed with the physical and emotional exertion, but the tears were gone by the time I got back to the counter at work. Absorb the negative externalities.