Last Night

One year ago I could tell that something was wrong, but I couldn't put words to it. I could feel it but I couldn't see it. I could hear it when I closed my eyes, but it'd be gone by the time I'd reopened them. I couldn't read it in the words, I could only hear them speak to me once I fell asleep. Lurking. Proposing. Imposing. Tempting. Twisting. Taking and taking and taking. Draining.

As time went by, it became harder to pretend that all was OK. It wasn't. It never had been. And never would be. The shift began and I could no longer discern if things were really starting to fall apart, or now I had to admit that they had been all along. My thick skin could no longer protect me. It was now just as much a part of the problem.

I kissed him in the rain that night. Just like it was old times. I should have known RIGHT THEN that this was it.

I saw him again last night after so many sleepless nights that I've lost count. I saw him. And I haven't seen his face so close to mine in so long. And there he was. I'm hoping it was the first of many. Contrast that with today and where I really was and where he really was and the feeling just wasn't the same. My standing, looking down at his grave is not supposed to be how this ended. Love is supposed to transcend. It's supposed to be hard and worth fighting for and then be able to enjoy it. Not lose it.

Live or die
Hero or coward
Fight or give in?

In the night of death, hope sees a star, and listening love can hear the rustle of a wing- Robert Ingersoll

Love is uncontrollable. It is tempting and seductive. It is rich and bleeding. It is outwardly strong, and inwardly fragile. It rises up to meet you and retreats just as quickly. It challenges the known and tempts the unknown. It is everything and it is nothing. For when it is gone it's like it had never even been there.

You have a world which you have built and now there is no world at all. You've had a conviction and in turn come to find it was empty. More than the pieces are lost. The whole never even was.

Is there really healing in pain? Or is it something we just tell ourselves to help move us on? Does it really move us forward? Do spinning wheels count as moving? Does pain propose treatment in another way? Does it ever get easier? Does it dissipate or does it just get different?

Much Ado:

I put on the make up to make myself feel better. It (hopefully?) gives the illusion that everything is fine. I've got everything under control. It does nothing more that just cover me, which is exactly what I don't want anyone to see.

I love life in a very abstract, spiritual, poetic sort of manner that likes to give hope, hint at salvation, and tropical breezes. Truthfully my life is nothing like this. My life appears to have been formed by two poles that largely disagree. The vortex that quakes in its midst is me, trying to remember how to breathe. It's me trying to decide what matters and what doesn't. It's me hoping for chaos, because really, that's the only way I know how to survive.

As life is sloughing off left and right, I like to think my choices matter. (They really don't; I've come to find.) It's here that there is so much pressure, that I don't have the time to second guess my judgements, and so proceed with the trek. (But here's the little secret that I've been hiding in my back pocket..... no matter WHAT decisions I make.... life WILL go on. A bad choice does not equal and change in the rotation.) This realization appears to indicate that I would much prefer to just blaze through life and NOT stop to think.

I would like to give the illusion that I care. Most of the time I don't. Most of the time I'm overbooked and under appreciated which clearly is where I am used to being, but know this is not my best use. When I slow it down and begin to take inventory, then there are just time and me and second guesses, and not only are we not three kings, we are not friends either.

But something saved me. A hand of God reached out one night and saved me. It saved my soul and my physical life in a matter of seconds. As I travelled over the edge (literally) I knew that THIS MUST BE IT. There was NO WAY I was going to make it out of this alive. Whereas I had believed that I could gauge my loved ones, their actions, and my surroundings...In a flash I had learned that it wasn't that my gauges were wrong necessarily, they weren't even in the right ball park. This was un-gauge-able. I put my trust of life in another human being who I adored to the CORE, and yet I am still not safe. When I prayed that I needed a change, a sign, something, anything... I DID NOT think that it would be a matter of life or death. I should have died that night, on the way to the bottom of that ravine, or at least on impact at the bottom.

I'm fearfully sure that this is where I submit the tag line (to myself): I am not the circus for you to star in.

Three men

Three men, each with his own cross to bear, each on a different path, one for the world to see and one that God sees, but never a path that would cross with the other two men:

ONE is a musician. A soldier. An educated man. Has served more than two tours of duty in the last 5 years. Is a proud family man and is regarded as such. He is dying. His body is dying. He will likely not make it through the next series of treatment. No matter how ill, you see, this man is living through his death. His wife will stand proudly by him. He will be missed and his family and children will suffer his loss.

TWO is a musician. A trade worker directly affected with the recent economic downturn. He works diligently and respectfully to provide for his family. He nickels and dimes it through the day. He doesn't complain but voices that life is getting to be too much. He is suffering, his family was suffering, and then almost like being caught in the palm of God, he was willingly and supportingly reassured that death would be close if he didn't seek help now. NOW was his time, and he took it. He lived.

THREE is a soldier through and through, a genuine patriot. His body is not dying, but it is badly injured. His mind is worse. He no longer fears death, he beckons it, pleads for it. Two failed but almost complete attempts renders him a failure. He couldn't live well enough, and couldn't get dying right either. His young family that has held him high for so long, questions what good any of it would do anymore. Are they wasting their time? Can they stand to see him put on a brave face, just to get people off his back, but really to just allow enough distance for him to try and end it all again. Will they walk away?

More than anything else I want the cures. I want to heal these men and take away their pain, their fear. I want to banish these ailments and promise that they'll never return again. I want to hold their hands, and feel their pulse and ask them what was the one thing each life was worth living for. I want to hear each of them say that life IS worth living. I want to hear it, know it, feel it and believe it. I want to define it and bottle it.

I long to be the ever-trusting, overflowing cup of peace and redemption, but I'm not. I'm just not. I can't be the one who keeps checking for the pulse.

Things that I am enjoying

Two Dog was right. There has to be something good:

• Love having a full fridge, it somehow makes me feel... accomplished?, yes even just the sight of it
• Have graduated from soda to chocolate milk to try and be more healthy... it's a step... a baby step! It makes me happy! =-)
• Love the feeling and smells of summer starting to think of turning in and reemerging as fall
• Have been researching retreats - I could really get into this. Pick me up and plop me down somewhere in the middle of nowhere ... but preferably near a body of water...
• New fish in the fishy pond! And none have died yet... Hot dog!
• Have been faithfully reading every night before bed for at least a 1/2-hour
• Love the cold sheets after a long hot day
• Blessed and thankful to be still employed
• My zoom zoom car with new tires that make it that more easy to zoom around, hug the road, and shift into bliss

New favorite song: Closer to Love

She got the call today

One out of the gray

And when the smoke cleared

It took her breath away

She said she didn't believe

It could happen to me

I guess we're all one phone call

from our knees

We're gonna get there soon

If every building falls

And all the stars fade

We'll still be singing this song

The one they can't take away

I'm gonna get there soon

She's gonna be there too

Cryin' in her room

Prayin' Lord come through

We're gonna get there soon

Oh it's your life

Oh it's your way

Pull me out of the dark

Just to show me the way

Cryin out now

From so far away

You pull me closer to love

Closer to love

Meet me once again

Down off Lake Michigan

Where we could feel the storm blowin

Down with the wind

And don't apologize

For all the tears you've cried

You've been way too strong

now for all your life

I'm gonna get there soon

You're gonna be there too

Cryin' in your room

Prayin' Lord come through

We're gonna get there soon

Oh it's your life

Oh it's your way

Pull me out of the dark

Just to show me the way

Cryin out now

From so far away

You pull me closer to love

Closer to love

Cause you are all that I've waited for

All of my life

We're gonna get there

You are all that I've waited for

All of my life

You pull me closer to love

Closer to love

Pull me closer to love

You pull me closer to love

Closer to love

Pull me closer to love

Love of a different kind

I love the wind

the rain

together

the elements:

I'm made real by these

and the beauty within them that validates

my being, my breath

my every thought and wonder

the soul within the shell which longs to be worthy.