And this is life. Or so I am told.
I have not seen any other proof to show that this is anything other than life.
Or, maybe this is just me. Maybe this is my life and therefore, I am nothing more than small glimpse of something far bigger and brighter than my perspective.

I cannot see the stars in the daylight hours.
But I know they are up there.
I know where the moon is and I know where the sun is too.
I know where they are, even when they are not present in the sky.
I got that . . .

And all at once, everything changed.
My eyes opened to the truth.
And yes, it was that simple.
Just like that.
All that was before was gone away and all at once, I saw myself differently.
I was free.
And now, here I am.

I saw this as if something magical happened. and yes, I call this magic.
I call her magical too.
But that is besides the point.

Breathe . . .
inhale through your nose and breath out through your mouth.

Are you ready?
Good.
Then let’s go

I know how it feels and for the record, I know about the stress that comes along, not to mention the basic fears or the concerns that come or make us question if any of this is worth it or even necessary.

It is amazing to me.
It is amazing when I think about the possibilities of who we are or how we identify.
It amazes me how limited we can be or how stuck we are when confronted with our own truths.
And truly, I have to say the freest I have ever felt was the freedom i found the day i chose to be brave enough to step away from the tables which no longer deserved my attention.
The best freedom is when you don’t have to say “goodbye,” or offer a speech because in the moment of awareness, we realize that arguing or responding degrades us. And like it’s been said, who is the fool?
Is it the fool themselves, or the fools who argue with them.

It amazes me how people limit themselves . . .

I have said this before. But I am reminded of a shirt I saw when I was young.

I sat in a church yesterday.
I was reminded of a day that happened years ago. Or in fairness, this was decades ago and somehow, I must have blinked or turned around or missed something.
Decades flew by.
Age crept in and I’m not sure how this came to pass.
I understand this intellectually, of course.
But lifetimes have gone by and years are gone.
I am closing in on the age of my Old Man when he passed away.

What the hell is that, by the way?
Why am I older than my doctors now?
When did this happen?
But let me stop before I digress even more.

I sat in Church.
This led me to think about where I was as a boy and how I was about to become a young man.
This caused me to think about my first realization of mortality.
Lie is life. Death is death.
And I shake my head.

Maybe I’ll never be “okay.”
If there is such a thing.
Maybe I’ll always want more.
Or maybe . . .

Maybe I’ll always look around and see what other people have and to me, there will never be enough.
Maybe there is something to be said about living in a frequent state of envy.
Maybe this is where our madness comes from because whether we try or die, we look around and experience an absence of grace or the spirit of achievement.
And so, we want more.
And yes, maybe this is why people cheat or cut corners or sneak around and look to get over.

There is something to be said about the summertime> or even more, there is something about the sunrise on a beach from a place in my past.
Or of course, there is something about the dichotomy or the division and the contrast of life and youth and age as it unfolds or transpires.
Life is happening.
Always.
But ah, such is life.
This is life when we find ourselves in the moment, awake and alive, and brave enough to face ourselves, honestly, with an introspective thought.
There is much to be considered or thought about when taking the dares in your heart.
And this is another fact: not enough people dare to follow their heart due to the fact of their failed past.
I know. I have lived this way too.
There is something to be said about the freedom that comes when you walk away.
No looking back. No turning around.
Just go . . .

She wore December on her grin like a long time gone. She wore this like a familiar shirt from something her Grandmother gave her, sacred too, or like a thing of comfort from the past, which was proof that someplace, or somewhere else, there was another time when all was well.
I see this in her, or should I say in you.
I appreciate the way you wear your smile or how you enjoy the sun when it’s kind enough to show itself in the dead of winter.

Certain things are often indifferent or unmoved, to say the least, and dare I say that I am indifferent because that would be a lie.
I am not indifferent. I am interested and invested and convicted of crimes that my head committed when my heart wanted to be true.
I am this.
I am all of this too.

This is where I came from. All my journals or my thoughts have all come from the same place. This is my past, of course, and these are my little secrets or my tiny recollections which I hold like old notes, folded in paper and kept away in a small pocket in my heart.

No one sends notes anymore.
Everything is texted and emailed.
I miss notes.
I miss seeing handwritten letters and reading the words I love you in a signature other than some kind of computer-generated text.
But that’s just me . . .

My biggest fears are that I would always be “that one,” or if anything, I would be that person who was always in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I was always afraid that I would never find my spot or fit someplace.

I think that shame or shame-based ideas are far more deadly than you and I believe.
And please, let me explain.

Shame is like fear and both are excellent motivators.
Excellent to say the least.

I was always afraid that I would never succeed or find a platform for myself, —or worse, I worried that I would always have to pretend to be someone else.

With all my heart, I do not believe that by any means, a man should be afraid of another person.
I do not believe that I should be afraid of anyone. Yet, I am.
At times, I swear that it seems like I am afraid of everyone (including you) because at some point, I fell for the tricks and slipped into the trap.

I believe that fear is draining. In fact, nothing drains us more than irrational fears. Nothing breaks us down or takes us away from ourselves like the fears that grow big and tall or become so huge and insurmountable that fear is all we see.
I hate the snowball effect, but I know this is real. Then again, it can be said that fear is an excellent motivator.
Fear can drive us in either direction. This can cause us to rise up and fight back. Or fear can have an adverse effect, in which case, we can turn inward and retreat, like a scared child who lives too afraid of the monsters in the closet or beneath the bed.

I would not call this a note of my most inspiring times, and nor would I consider this the glories of my youth. There is nothing romantic or cool about this time in my life and I would never say that this was me at my best. Not at all.
To be clear, this entry is more for my own discovery to trace myself back to a lineage where I was always booking for “something” to help me feel better.

I saw myself through a case of mistaken identity.
I was unsure of myself and my body.
I was unsure who (if anyone) would ever look at me with an interest that extended further than a handshake or a simple introduction.

What I am about to describe is real and an honest description of what took place after my nights out.
I had my struggles, of course. But there is something beautiful here, which is why I expose this to find a fair and honest representation of desire that went unaddressed.

 – The colors across my bedroom walls took on a new style, and the room began to move in a way that was perhaps demented and wild, or bizarre to say the least.
I used to love this.
It was clear that the LSD had begun to take its turn and the trip was about to begin.
I have seen things unlike the usual or the norm and yet, I have never seen anything like this.
Yet, I was not a novice to this kind of experiment. I was not new to the hours of trippy or self-inflicted insanity. 

I can’t say that yesterday was my last lecture. But I can say that yesterday was my last lecture of its kind.
And yes, this hit me hard. This also points out that despite our plans and our wishes, life makes changes no matter how we wish for something else.

Back when I was a boy, I suppose I would always be the way I was. I never assumed my Father would die or that his business would fold or go under.
I assumed that I would work in our family business.
But life and the fortune tellers of fate and destiny had other plans for me.

I am told that all men are animals.
I was told this more than once.
All men are animals.
Each and every one of us.
And maybe this is true.
I was told “from 8 to 80, blind, crippled or crazy.
All men are animals”

In the spirit of making this easy, I can’t say that I know where fantasies come from. I cannot say where my fascinations came from or how they began.
I know that I consider myself to be open-minded. I do my past to be perceptive and pay attention.
I can’t say that I am a person without challenges or problems.
I am as crazy as anyone else here in this world.
I have a drive.
I certainly appreciate the swerve of a woman’s body.

At the same time, I cannot say that I have a type or a style. No, and to be very clear, I have said this to you before. But in the interest of discovery and to further the meaning of this journal; please allow me to repat myself.
I have a feeling or a connection, and this? This is my type.
Looks and body parts are attractive. But this?
This is more.

We live in a very different world now. You and me.
Our universes collided, for sure.
I know this.
But now, or at least as of this morning; it seems as though I am on the other side of the galaxy.
We are alive and living in different worlds (for now)

This is not because we come from different sides of the spectrum or that our age, generation or culture is not the same.
Not much has changed at the core of us.
At least, no.
I don’t think so.
What I mean is we all have our motivations and each are to honor a thought, a want, a fear, or a need.

We all have lungs to breathe and eyes that see.
At least, most of us do.

Music . . .
I’m not sure what moves you or makes your body need to dance. But we all have a vibration and a beat or rhythm that makes us move.
I’m not sure if my rhythm is good or bad or if I dance well or not.
But whether I am good or not is not the point of this entry,

I think I learned something last night.
I saw something beautiful.
I saw something pure and brave and to me, this was perfect because this happened at the perfect time.

Social media seems to know too much. Then again, so did the radio back in the day. Remember the way it was before technology took the place?
I say this because the so-called algorithms seem to know when heartache is in the air.
The radio used to know this too. Only, I was never sure how this was. Or maybe I was hypersensitive. Or maybe fate, God, and destiny have a sense of humor because the radio would never fail–at least, not when a break up took place. Somehow and suddenly, every song that had relevance and every song that had meaning between myself and my ex-girl came on the radio.
I saw this as fate’s cruelty or perhaps this was destiny showing me a new way, as if to purge the emotion and make me hurt so I can heal.

What I am about to say is something that I have to say again because I am still unsure.
I do not know if this is manly of me or not.
I do not know if it masculine to admit to these things. Then again, perhaps, my definition of being a man or manhood is in need of being updated.

You do know that things can always be worse, right?
Then again, I’m not sure that anyone wants to hear this. At least, not under bad circumstances.
Of course, things could be worse.
I know this. And you do too.

I know that despite the wrong turns and the pitfalls, somewhere, someone is hurting far worse than I am. I know that I have two arms and two legs, two eyes, a mouth and a nose. And while admittedly, yes, my age has crept up. I can still function.
My body does not function like it used to. But nothing does. No one functions like they did when they were younger.
Age is undefeated.
And I get that.

I am on a train with my back towards the westbound direction where I have been heading for more than three decades.
It is hard to think that I am still here or that I am still making this trip.
I often think about my exit or my great escape. At the same time, I am looking back as if to remember the way things were.
Me, younger than ever, alive and well and working my first real job as a grownup.
In fairness, I looked like a high school kid in a suit. And still, school was over. At least for me.
I never finished school. I never walked with my graduating class. I never did much with college, aside from a few semesters.
I was not a student and nor was I interested in classroom subjects.

I have always wanted to know what it would be like to be good at something.
I’m not sure if you understand.
And when I say good, I don’t mean good.
I mean really good.
I have listened to poets read their work and thought about what it would be like to be as good as them.
Could I be?
Or am I just below average with hopes that are better than my talents?
Who knows?

I have watched people do their craft and wondered if this was all a case of practice makes perfect.
Or is this something internal? For example, no one could do what Beethoven could do. And no one could do what Mozart could do. And the same could be said about Chopin or the other composers.

This . . .
This right here is more than more.
This is the most I have.
Right here.

I don’t believe it when people say they have a type. Or maybe this is just me. Maybe I should keep it this way and remain subjective.
But I believe.
More than anything, I believe in the fact that there is only one person who can steal your heart and never give it back.
I think that chemistry overrules the typical version of someone’s type. At the same time, I understand the ideas and the feelings that come with physical or sexual attraction.

If it were up to me or if given the choice, I’d say that love would be easy. I’d say that insecurity would never intercept our truths and so, if it were up to me, then it would be up to me to wipe away the harm from our past so that we can face each other without worrying about our yesterdays.

I saw something the other day that had an impact. I saw this woman talking on a video about what happens when we reach out and find ourselves rejected or ignored.
She said something happens to us.
She said the rejection registers in our brain the same as when we experience physical pain.
I get that.

The funny thing is I remember the first time I looked at a woman and realized I had a special fascination for the female anatomy.
And I was young too. I was in second grade to be exact. And what’s more is I remember this clearly because my second-grade teacher was cruel. She was an awful looking woman who was both witch-like and equipped with gnarled fingers that resembled the limbs of crooked branches that stemmed from an old white birch tree.
She had bad breath that smelled from coffee and evil beady eyes that beamed with a cold and brutal sense of angry disapproval.
I assumed that all teachers were like thos, or like her, and angry, ugly in more ways than one and, too, I never assumed that a teacher could be younger or anything close to beautiful.
And then one day. . .
Mrs. Rowan called out sick.

All I knew is that I was the young one. I was the kid brother to a big brother and the youngest one in the house.
But what else did I know? Or what else could I know?
I say this as a fair question to myself because what else do we know when we are young?
What do we know, aside from the pecking order in the house. Or if we take it to the streets, or the different social places, what do we pay attention to?
What do we notice, other than the different levels of who’s cool and who isn’t?
We know who’s bigger or better, and other than the relevance of age or what it means to be a grade ahead or behind someone else, what else do you know when you’re just a kid?

I never told anyone if I had a crush . . .
Then again, who would I tell?
Or if I told anyone, what would they tell me?