It hurts to die.

It hurts to die, just a little, just for a few moments in comparison to our life's. Yet.... it hurts oh so much to live.

Life hurts, it is one of the brutal truths of our existence. To continue to go on with our mundane day to day existence is to continue when the odds may be stacked against us. To move forward and trudge along, pushing through the pain and agony for that pain and agony is not something that lasts forever. It is a temporary pain, a moment in time that passes as swift as the arrow pierces the flesh.

Suicide is an issue with which I have personally struggled. There are still moments when I even think about it, maybe for only a fleeting moment, but for that moment in time I ponder... "What would it be like? Would it hurt? How long would I be missed? How many lives would I leave a tear in for leaving in such a way? What would my son think?" Than I ask myself a seemingly inane question, something I saw once in a Superman Comic. So I say to myself after I ask all those questions "I am in pain now sure. Things kinda suck and I'm not entirely happy.... but can I promise myself that there is absolutely no chance what so ever of me ever being happy again? That there will not even be one fleeting smile left in my life?" To which I can unequivocally say no. There WILL be happiness again in my life. I will be happy again at some point, hell I might find something that makes me smile on my way to where I am going.

That's the thing. That is my key to existence and perpetual movement. Sure, life may be kinda shitty right now, but that is right now. That is not tomorrow, or next week or next month or even next year. In the coming weeks something might turn in the best for me, I might meet someone. I might get that dream assignment. I might get selected for something I have been wanting to do. My son could become something and I would never get to see the man he grew up to be.

So I survive. For survival is easy and anyone can do it. The next step is to live. To fully move forward with my life and to be happy and be something that I can be proud of.

So fight. Survive. LIVE. Find happiness for it is a moment away. 

The point of our existence and the curiosity of life.

What is the point of the existing upon this plain? I often think about that. With the degree of apathy I have, I get to wondering why things are the way they are at times. I become curious about the point of certain things. Why does one continue to go on when it seems that so much of their life has been taken from them? Why does one worry about the next day or the one after that. You see this a lot in those who have terminal illnesses. Who's quality of life is so terrible that they no longer wish to continue on. Or those who quality of life has dropped so drastically from that which they desire to be at or that which they wish they they could have maintained.

I have a friend. Bob. I always called those doomed to death Bob. Bob used to do a lot of things. Run whenever Bob wanted to, have physical interactions and intense mental battles with those Bob found interesting for long periods of time. Than Bob got ill. Now Bob is no longer able to do these things because of this illness. Bob's illness is under control, for the most part, it seems. Yet Bob fears a resurgence of this disease... and if Bob loses what Bob has now, what is left of what Bob used to have... Bob would rather die than continue to exist in that shell of a body.

I had another friend, Bobbie. Bobbie had a disease where he was slowly getting progressively more paralyzed as time went on. First he couldn't walk. Than he couldn't control his bathroom functions. Than he couldn't eat, couldn't move his arms or his head. He was also ill with another viral issue, one that was going to kill him far faster than the progressive paralysis. When it came to taking care of the viral issue and curing him, allowing him to live for many more months, not years, he refused the medication. Instead, he wanted to die.... to have help in dying.

Before than, when I was still in high school I had a girlfriend who's uncle, George, actual name this time since I can't think of a third "Bob" style name that isn't ridiculous, had issues a medical issue I can't remember clearly. While we were dating his medical issue was manageable but would kill him in 5-10 years, but he was offered a procedure that would allow him to live a rather long life. The only issue is that this would drastically reduce the quality of his life if the procedure went wrong or failed. So, he made a choice. Rather than live a long and full life of mediocre or worse quality, he would rather live to be 37-43 with a high quality life and be there for his family.

These three instances have gotten me thinking. At what point does quality out weigh quantity? As long as the quality of life is there, the quantity doesn't matter. To live to a young age of full potential, enjoying every moment possible during that time, or rather to live to a ripe old age of significantly lessened potential ... is a choice that I myself wonder at times.

I struggle

Every day I struggle with a myriad of things.

My mind struggles. To find the words to convey the message that I hold within me. To find the way to say it as elegantly as my inner being knows that it should be said.

My mouth struggles. To say these words and say them smoothly and precisely. For the message I have to convey must be understood and it must be pure.

My hands struggle. To flow as smoothly and perfectly as the water of the stream. To fall as beautifully along their chosen path as the petals of the cherry blossoms when they are in bloom and the wind blows.

My heart struggles. To make sense of what it feels. To understand everything that it comes across and to be at peace with what that which it has found and will continue to find.

My eyes struggle. To see the truth in what their gaze lands upon. To bring an understanding, so that the mind and the heart have less work to do and may actually understand life.

Yes, overall, I struggle greatly and progressively.

I struggle to fall in a love that is not temporary. I struggle to find the things that I excel at and to find the message that I must bring to this world. I struggle to find my own inner peace so that I may show others what peace looks like and feels like. I struggle every day and I delight in my struggles. For each struggle is an opportunity to learn more. To understand more. For these struggles give me a chance to grow and become something greater than myself.

For these struggles are something that I yearn for. I hope that my mind never stops trying to find the right words to use for than my mind will be grow dull and lazy. I hope that my mouth never learns to articulate everything properly, for than it will go silent having found the sounds to make. I hope that my hands never learn to flow as the river does and stay as choppy as they were when I first learned to grasp things during my childhood. I hope that my heart continues its struggle to understand the emotions that flow forever within and through it so that I may continue to learn what love and joy and sorrow and pain is. I hope that my eyes never make sense of what they see and continue to challenge the truth of what they see.

I hope to never stop my struggles, to never end them and finally be perfect. For in my imperfection I am beautiful. In my imperfection I have skills and talents that are ever improving. For in my imperfection I am myself.

For this imperfect self. This person that I am and that I hold dear. I love him. For I know that even though this man is imperfect and still has so much to do with his life, it is that potential that he has that truly drives him forward. That never ending quest to be perfect and that is why I love him, myself. For a person can never be perfect for perfection is unattainable. Yet to seek this perfection, to ever long for it, that is truly beautiful and worthy of love.

To not reply

A while back I got into a really bad breakup with someone. I had trusted them to not cheat, had given them so many avenues and ways to not cheat and yet they still found a way to cheat and still found a way to break my heart. Well, I moved on relatively easily after that. Having disdain and a desire to "get back" at someone can make the heart grow cold to who they were. So I moved on, I  found self happiness than I found external happiness. So I wrote on it and made a post about how happy I was and how giddy life currently was for me.

Then she sent me a message, saying how it was funny that I realized some things and that she was glad how stuff happened and that things went down how they did. That she thought I was better off for what happened and that she was too. I kinda laughed at that and asked myself, how do I reply? I didn't know, so I asked my friends. How do I reply to her? This girl who did such a thing to me than sends me this message? My friend looks at me and decides to tell me a story.

She tells me of a time when she and her boyfriend broke up. How after  a couple weeks he sent her a similar message and that she didn't reply to it. After a couple of months they saw each other at a party. Time had passed, hearts had healed and they talked. Eventually he brought up the message that she never replied to saying that her reply was so powerful and potent that it couldn't have come accross better. She looks at him stupidly, she had never sent him a reply. To which he smiles and nods his head affirming that. He said that her lack of a physical word based reply to that message after her relationship with him was a more potent and powerful message than any message that she could have ever said to him.

So, I never replied to that girl either. The message was sent loud and clear I believe after all this time. We have seen each other once or twice since that message, a text exchanged and finally an agreement made to break contact for the sake of one another. The message sent loud and clear.

I received another message this day, a message asking for something that I can't help but chuckle at and was going to give regardless of the message. I am incapable to do anything other than what you ask, I told you that... perhaps in your betrayal and discovery of finding out what you are truly capable of, you forgot what it was I am incapable of. Hatred.

A Cycle

After sweetness, comes bitterness.

After bitterness, is sweetness. Such is just one cycle.

Joy and sorrow.
Love and loss.
Pain and growth

These are just a few cycles and such cycles exist to teach us lessons.

These lessons are learned over days.
These days turn to weeks.
Those weeks turn to months.
And months turn to years turn to a lifetime.

All the while this cycle is repetitive. Teaching us, helping us to learn so many different experiences.

Learn from these cycles, do not let the bad overcome the good.

For the good that both precedes and supersedes the bad is worth every moment of bad. For those moments of bad are moments of pain. Pain turns into growth. That growth turns into many things, all good in the long run, no matter how painful the journey.

But fear not, for you will not journey alone. You will find those who are great and powerful and loving and they will show you so much. It is true that these people may leave, which turns to a loss, but they will not always leave.

There will be those that stay. Befriend them, love them. For while your path with them may split for a time, that which tethers you together remains and that love will not be lost.

So, while sweetness may lead to bitterness, do not be dissuaded. For that change is not immediate, nor is it inevitable. It is a slow and gradual change.

Enjoy and nurture the sweetness so that it may grow into love instead.

Break the cycle and make it something beautiful.

I... am love

A friend told me once that I am love. That I love so freely and so deeply that it enables me to see the good in people, that I try to bring that out of them and that I do not give up on someone even when it is clear that that is what should happen. That because of this quality of myself I often leave myself open to the knives of others. That because of this I am unable to stop caring for someone regardless of the betrayal or the hurt and that I carry this wound upon my heart, within my soul and along my thread.

I have been lucky in my life for when it comes to love. The element of it is so easily attained for me in some ways that when I find someone that I connect with love is so easily garnered from that relationship. That with these finding I am willing to surrender parts of myself, to give up myself to a higher meaning. Yet with this, I place myself into a stasis of ecstatic truth, which is a risk that I take. I disarm myself and lay open who I am to the person I find worthy of my affections. That I open myself up so fully and show who it is that I am at my core. That when I bond with this person physically, sexually, mentally, I allow myself to cast aside my fears of love and I subject myself to the moment, the effort so flawless and enjoyable. That I let myself fall in love or I die trying.

Yet with that love there is the fear of loss, the sympathetic death that comes with it. I do not mean the death that you see when one is lost to mortality, but the death of what has been. What could have been. What we were and what we are now. Falling in love is like staring into the sun, but instead of being blinded by that overly bright light, it instead illuminates all the things that matter to you and highlights the good and shows you how amazing things can be. That love is getting caught into something that is far larger than either you or I could ever be apart, but together two people, three people, can be so much more than they could ever have been alone.

So when you lose love, when you lose someone that you cared about, someone that mattered so greatly to you. That promise of forever, the promise of joy and happiness and peace. To contemplate a point where we were together and now that we are no longer together. How could such a thing be so? How could such a thing exist within our lives? That once we were "Us" and now we are not?  Then you look at old videos, old photos of times gone past. Of all the memories held within those times and all the joy and happiness that you shared. Seeing a replay of something that was so real... so tangible and solid. Where did it go? How could it have gone away?

Someone once said that it is better to have loved and lost, than to have never loved at all. Part of me agrees with that, for I am love. I love many people and I understand that feeling more than any other. Yet to have lost that love for another, to look at their face and know that there was a time when they would look at you and smile and now they look through you or around you or simply do not even look towards you. It makes me question. Is it better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all? Is it truly a good thing to love freely and openly as I do with those I interweave my thread with? Or is love something that is so fleeting, so hard to truly obtain that perhaps while I feel love, it is but a taste of it and I have yet to truly obtain the fruit of the Gods and enjoyed that love.

For now, I am love. I am joy and happiness. I am the trust that is gained with love, yet I am also that sadness and despair, the betrayal that occurs when love is lost. I am emotion, pure.

Settling

I was speaking with a friend today, well more of an acquaintance really since I have still yet to meet her in person. I invited her out to the panel, since I figured it would be a good place for her to re-enter the scene at and enjoy some friendship and meet so many new people! She stated she could not attend, her boyfriend was not happy when she would attend kink related events. "Oh... well that sucks." She agreed, it made her upset. So I pondered upon it, why would you stay with someone who wanted you to cut off your own arm? Why remain with someone who made you happy in a variety of ways but in one you lost a limb. It was because you were settling for this person. You had decided that this is all you deserved to have.

I was, honestly, a little upset by this. Here is a person who I can see is attractive, has a good mind and seems to have a lot of fun, so why have I never seen her at an event. The answer was received and I felt bad for her situation. She thought she deserved no better. That since a vast majority of her friends have already been betrothed and loved by people that make them happy and that she has not, that she must not be worthy of that kind of joy. That she must always settle for something that is less than what she truly deserves to make her happy. Now, this is not to say that the individual she is with is not a great person, he might well be the Grand Pubar of all things awesome and vanilla. But she is not vanilla, she is of another flavor and must find the complimentary cone and sprinkles.

I know how she feels though. I have felt that. The belief that I have done so many bad things that I deserve to be treated badly, to be cast aside when the 'better' option comes along. Yet that is not true, not in the least. Many a time it has been false and an outright lie. Yes, I have done bad things, some may seem them as terrible things, but that does not mean that I am a terrible person. That I am unworthy of happiness and joy. So I took a risk. I stepped outside my comfort zone and stopped chasing her, them. Let her be happy with the choice that she had made and moved forward with my life and was alone.

For months at a time I would be alone as I worked for myself. Appeasing myself with empty connections that I knew would go no where. Finding a 'fix' of social needs and moving towards improvement. Towards making myself better so that I would be happy without someone there with me.

That is the key. To be happy in your loneliness. For if you can be happy when you are alone. Truly happy. Not a smile and "I'm fine" but honestly happy with your situation and not driven to be smiling so people stop asking. It takes some time, some thought and inner searching but it can be done. I have done it on many occasions, not simply because I had become lonely from the situation, but because I had to improve myself. Make myself better.

So I worked on my inner joy and obtained it. I worked on my love of self and now I love myself now more than ever before. For if I am not happy alone. If I cannot love myself. If I cannot find my own self attractive. All within my loneliness or sadness or any negativity, then how can someone find me to be so as well? They may, yet just as my false bravado of those emotions during that time not being true will dwindle and fizzle so would their attraction to that which I falsely portray.

So, take that step. Be alone and love yourself, enjoy yourself and find yourself to be attractive. You are worthy of so much more. Everyone is. Never settle for the bottom of the barrel, the rotten fruit, the molded crumbs. For you will always, ALWAYS, find that there is better out there for you. You must simply let go of the negative so that you may find the positive.