A lesson in love

People come into your life, and then they go. For me I have noticed lately, when people leave, I hear often they regret it.
I am not full of myself, it's just what I hear.
Years later, people locate me on facebook, text me, find me via friend of a friend. I hear all the time
"You are a good person, and I am sorry to not see you so much." or something like that.

It makes me laugh. All that time I wasted... all that time I wasted trying to be something I wasn't.

Embrace yourself, personality flaws, drawbacks, dorkiness, insecurities. They make you human. And people strive for that. People strive for the ability to say "This is me, who the hell are you?"

Those flaws make you one of a kind. If you stick to your guns and remain yourself, through all the terrible things people do, they regret it. If you listen to your heart and act as if you want other people to treat you, plain and simple, people remember you. It's a great boost to keep pushing to be a good person.

All I choose to be, all I want to be, all I have ever wanted to be, was the change I wanted to see in the world.
I used to strive to be something special, something different, something that people remembered, something that stood out in people's minds.
As soon as I gave up on trying to be something memorable I feel like I became just that. As soon as I felt like "Fuck 'em all", felt that deep down, people started caring or missing me when I wasn't around. And more important, better people filtered into my life.

All I have to say is that I am so, so happy the ones that are supposed to be gone are gone. I am happy they admit they are trying to recreate some good in their lives like me. People tell me often they want to be as good of a person that I am. And usually I have a terribly low self esteem about things like that. Being a good person, making people feel good, I feel like I am never doing enough...

As soon as you are yourself, people can't make up that. You either are, or you aren't

I know from experience, if you try to be like someone else it never works.

This sounds vain to me. But it's true. I am so sick of being insecure. It's just not me anymore. It's time YOU take a stand. It's time you love yourself, because no one else is going to if you don't. I take solace in the fact that there is no one else out there remotely as awesome as I am. No one can be me better than I can. Take pride in yourself. God does. God made you that way for a reason.

"I know I come to You only when in need
I’m not the best believer
not the most deserving
but all I have
all I am
all I can
For him
I’d beg You on bended knees for him
Precious baby, is your life hanging by a thread?
A thread I’m standing on, praying on today?
All I have
all I am
all I can
For him
I’d beg You on bended knees for him

I've got this curse in my hands
All I touch fades to black
Turns to dust turns to sand
I've got this curse on my tongue
All I taste is the rust
This decay in my blood
I don’t like the doctor with the deep long face
Only wants to give us the very worst case
I’d rather shout out and shake him and do anything
For him
I’d beg you on bended knees for him

When the moment strikes
it takes you by surprise
leaves you naked in the face of death and life
there is no righteousness in your darkest moment We’re all equal in the face of what we’re most afraid of
And I’m so sorry
for those who didn’t make it
and for the mommies who are left with their heart breaking

Search for meaning in sores
The sentences they might form
It’s the grammar of skin
Peel it back, let me in
Look for hope in the dark
The shadow cast by your heart
It’s the grammar of faith
No more rules, no restraint
How angry I would be
If You’d taken him away
I wish I was wiser but instead
I’ll be grateful, I’ll say thanks
For the love for the joy for the smile on his face
I’d beg You on bended knees for him"


I heard a great story today, someone I love deeply and don't see enough (which is my own fault) called me to tell me this beautiful story...a wake up story.
....Like a bed time story puts you to sleep, a wake up story pulls you out of it, out of automatic, out of self mode.

It's a story of cancer and miracles. It seems so cliche, a story we've heard a million times. A friend of a friend's brother's wife's brother uttered Jesus on their last breath and was immediately restored to full on American Gladiator health status. Right?


But once you hear the details of stories like that, people with big enough brass balls to just trust in God, you can't help but cry, you can't help but breathe deep and feel like "One day, that will be me."

Can you imagine what she felt, holding her hands after getting the news? Can you stop to think for a moment that initial shock, that wanting to wail, shake the Dr., punch the wall, rip out your hair in frustration and anger, fall down and pre-mourning and self loathing and pain. Can you imagine that "Why"? That feeling where your bowels want to give out and your knees fail and tears aren't enough of a demonstration of your emotion, right, RIGHT in that moment of despondency and hopelessness, they chose to trust. That alone, that fortitude to make the decision to turn your face towards God and humble yourself enough to say "it's Yours" is one metric fuckton of a Miracle.

Miracles are in the details.
Miracles are specific entities, like a little firecracker's worth of an angel. Miracles don't operate like us. Miracles aren't selfish enough to keep to some people, miracles spread by word of mouth and work in one situation to bless another by osmosis. Long after "situation A" forgets the miracle, the miracle's message spreads onto other situations, changing minds, changing actions, blessing thoughts and reminding people how necessary it is to call on the name of Jesus, before anger, before pain and grudges form.
(It's a very complicated process. It's a good thing it's not a human's responsibility to organize miracles.)

Part of the miracle is creation. I think for those who are blessed with prophesy or that are good in numbers, it's like demonstration their gift, that little part of Jesus gets them a little bit closer to God. I think that people that are blessed with being innately "artsy" and "crafty" and "creative" bless others with demonstration of their gift, they bless themselves by taking that piece of God they were given and using it. That's why the person that called me did. She took her gift and gave it, and in return was blessed herself with the living story of a miracle.

All this "gift" and "blessing" jargon isn't bullshit, I promise. I know I sound like I am turning into the thing I loathe, which is a Chintsy Christian. Trust me, I loathe, loathe loathe bullshit, backstabbing, and most of all the mask of christian cliches and mannerisms hiding actions much more sinister, evil and worst of all misguided.

But this is just a simple story about a present that was presented and I can't think of less "Christianese" words.

......


I find myself being alone. Lone. Not lonely. Was the "Lone Cowboy" lonely? No, he liked his own company as opposed to that of a gang. That's why he was "the Lone" and not "the Lonely". Stupid tangent, but still.

I am so not lonely, I am so happy being alone. I've never been more alive. I am painting like a maniac. At first I thought it was ovaries realizing they can't create, so my body is forcing out energy in other ways. But really I think it's my reverting back to God, using something, the tool I was given.
Reveling in the gift, I am automatically following the trail back to my maker. Dealing with this constant hunger for this, exercising it, feeling it, being it, getting consumed by it. I am like clockwork thinking, feeling and acting more like I should be.
I am getting out of this doorway. I am digging out of this sink-hole of my brain with a canvas and a paint brush.
To be good at something, writing, painting, photography, numbers, people, you have to be a little nuts about it. You have to get consumed by it. You have to let it burn you out and ignite again sparking something new. You have to fall on it and break and rebuild it to be better. It's about breaking down and renewal, regrowth, rebirth. Isn't that our equation for our relationship with the God, the Earth, Energy, whatever the shit you want to call your set of beliefs?



All of this stuff I write is free writing, I just write as I think, so don't judge me.

The bite that binds the gift that gives

I am an asshole. I agree with that. I've been called some pretty terrible things, most of them true. I've been labeled, and I understand that. I am a bitch. And you can tell because most of my sentences in what I write start with "I". Most of what I say begins with me. The majority of what I talk about is something I barely understand, myself.

It doesn't phase me anymore.

I have a terrible time controlling myself. Sometimes, I think it's the reason people are obsessed with vampires, werewolves, zombies. Compulsions they can't control. Something that we know will ultimately destroy us. We are obsessed with our own destruction. A love so deep that will surely end in pain. This fiction, it's just us on a bigger scale. It's us magnified. People are consumed with things and ideas and imaginings that destroy us. "My body's strained, my heart's aflame. But God, I like it".
As if letting ourselves go and give in will ultimately make us infinite. But it's not worth the sacrifice.

I suppose.

You know this is one big metaphor. I am an addict. I think once I start respecting myself this will change.
Have you ever met a self respecting addict?
I think that's the difference.
I'm not a sex addict, not a drug addict, not an alcoholic.

And you'll never guess what I'm addicted to.


This doesn't make sense I know. I am just tired. I might wake up and delete this tomorrow.

It's here in the smallest bones... the feet and the inner ear. Such an enormous thing. To walk. To listen.

Every day we see love turn into hate.
Every day, millions of people utter foul words to one another, do foul things.
Is it because the ones we love, it is so easy to turn against?
The ones that are close to us, it is so simple a task to say or do the thing we know in our heart of hearts is the one thing that would kill us inside, we do it to them instead. They give us trust and make it easy. Easy to take our weaknesses and breed them in others. It's dark and real. It's evil, it's pain.
It's not a universal law to be kind for others' sake. It's a universal law to be kind for ourselves. Grudges, anger, greed, envy. They eat us up inside, more than what we do to others.
It takes our power, our happiness, our connection.
We make the same mistakes, we hide behind walls.
I make the same mistakes. I hide behind walls.

Is there a way to make it... the other way around? Can we, even in minute instances, take hate and turn it to love? Love is freeing. It sounds like hippie bullshit.
But is it so much as laughing, at someone who curses us? Is it so much as dropping a coin in a cup held by a dirty hand? Is it so much as complimenting those who despise us? Smiling in an uncomfortable situation? Is it such a small thing, as listening? Owning blame? Forgiving? Forgiveness? Is that the basis of love? Saying, thinking, being... forgiveness? Releasing others, loving, that releases ourselves. Forgiveness is freedom, freedom is love, love is God. So by that proxy... it seems so simple yet we get caught up in bullshit, drama, pain, anger, envy, grudges. It's so easy to be free. It's so easy to be near God. It's not something you necessarily need to think about. It's not something you need to struggle or fight for. It's something that starts at the bottom up. It's something that starts in the small things.
Smiling, laughing.
Giving.
Forgetting.
Forgiving.
Loving.