Answer the Question – So, I Heard They Call This Life on Life’s Terms

Sometimes the mind gets too full. What I mean is there’s too much on your plate at one time.
I suppose what I’m trying to say is that life is always happening. We have grown folks business and people who mistake our kindness for weakness. So yeah,
rest assured, life can be a crazy place to be and the question becomes how do we keep our head in the game when it seems like the rest of the world is playing offside or against us?

What I’m trying to say is you need something to break the pressure. For me, well, this is it.
This is my pressure relief valve. This is where I can come and let everything go.
Right here (with you) but then again, I’m sure that you already knew that.
Or should I say that I hope you already know.

There are times when I come here with no specific intention. I don’t have anything special that I want to say. As I see it, this is more of a time where I need to ease the tension and what I do is I let the words fall on the page. I don’t think about them. I don’t analyze them. I just write.
I open up the jar to my surface-level thinking and then I let go.

They call this stream of consciousness.
But me, I call this lifesaving.

I say that at times like now when there’s so much going on at once; or at times when the news on television is just so sad and tragic; or at times when there’s pressure coming at me from all sides, I need an outlet. I need something to relieve the tension which is thick. To be honest, I know I need to make a move.
I know that I need to find the catalyst and let my changes begin; I know that nothing gets better by itself; and I know that in all fairness – I have work to do. I know that the changes I need to make most in my life are all on me. I know this.
I know this the same as I know that no one will brush my teeth for me. I know that nobody will advocate for me. No one will help me unless I choose to help myself; otherwise, I’ll sit there, hungry and wanting, wishing and waiting for someone or something to come along.

I am real though. I am as real as they come.
I have work to do. I have dreams to fulfill and goals to accomplish.
By the way, this is nothing new. I have all of this on a daily basis and so do you. 
Come to think of it . . . 
We all have life happening to us.

Either way, it is not far now between me and you and the rest of our lives.
We are not so distant, not at all.
We are certainly much closer than you think. We’re closer to an answer.
We’re closer to a solution. We’re closer to uncovering new ideas.
We’re going to find things and lose things.
Good things are on the way; however, not everything that’s bad is so treacherous or life-ending.
We’ve been up and down before.
We’ve seen great things, like rich people on a stroll.
We’ve seen all sides of the City.
Haven’t we?
We’ve fought. We’ve made up..
We’ve hurt and we’ve bled.
To make this clear, we’ve also survived more than we realize.

But still, we are a species that hates to wait.
We hate not having answers.
We want what we want and saying things like, “It is what it is,” just doesn’t seem to ring the bell anymore, 
at least not for us.

We’ll need things and we’ll want things. Certainly one thing that will happen is that we will come to recognize our life with different moments of realization.
It’s like the fog lifts or the smoke clears.
Do you know what I mean?

We are going to grow from this moment on. I promise you this.
We will find new levels of awareness. We’ll either grow or revert back to a smaller size; in which case, what I’m trying to say is that somehow, we can run in circles. We can drive ourselves crazy with particulars and overthink details until we lose our minds.
We can assume the worst – and we often do,
although, I’m not sure why we do this to ourselves.

We can run around the world and, at the same time, we’ve gone nowhere and done absolutely nothing.
Then one day, you wake up.
Then one day, we see things differently.
We’re less afraid and more intent on making a new way for ourselves.

Eventually our will and intent break the barriers of our fears and limitations and then just like that . . .
all of a sudden, we brave the storm and we’re whole again.

Know why? It’s because of yesterday.
Whether yesterday was regrettable or not, we come to this level of awareness in a unique amount of time.
I say this because there are some souls who are connected to a stronger sense of purpose. For them, all was revealed and supported at an earlier stage in their life.
Some people never wake up. Or, better yet, some people never want to.
Then again, some people were born lucky. Only, they were never fortunate enough to recognize what they had.
They found out about their wealth when it was too late.
They were never fortunate enough to know that what they needed had always been right there; right in front of them, just screaming like, “hey, look at me. I’m right here!”

We’re really not too far apart, not at all.
At least, we’re not as distant as the situations imply.
I can understand that circumstances are never the same.
But somehow, in spite of our anger or the different frustrations, there’s always something calling us back.

Let’s face it . . .
I am always going to be me. You will always be you and because of this, there is a chemistry that will always bring us together, which is fine with me.
I say this is fate at its finest. I say that fate connects people – even if (or when) we want to run away; our purpose and our reasons, or the meaningful answers to the question “why” will always bring us back here to this spot.
I believe this.
I believe this with every ounce of my being. I believe that certain details of fate can never be changed or altered.
I believe that my destiny has, is and will always be my destiny.
Even if I decide to change my destiny, the change has always been destined.
Like you . . .
Like me . . .We are this destiny, together.
In for a dollar or in for a pound, there is no one else but us.

I say this because life always reveals itself to us. However, sometimes we try not to see the writing on the wall.
Maybe we don’t like what we see.
Or, maybe we want more. I know we want more.
Everybody always wants more.
This is in our DNA.
Sometimes, we look away. Sometimes, we look for the easy fix or the painless and easier option.
But hey, it’s like I’ve been told you over and over again: The only way to it is through it!
I get that.

I believe in the benefits of my past. I believe in the wealth of my experience.
I say that even the bad things have led me to incredible realizations.
But more, I believe in me.
I believe in us and, more importantly, I believe in you.
I believe in everything that you say.

Go ahead. Call me crazy. Call me stupid. Call me hopeless or call me a dreamer.
And fine. I can take a hit.
I can take the truth. I can take anything except the loneliness that comes without having you in my life.
That’s something that I can’t take.
I can’t take the falling bridges and the collapsing mindsets that come with tragic thinking or catastrophizing ideas.
These are the ideas that tend to make me believe in the impending doom and then, all of a sudden, the sky is falling. 

Also, my whole life was based on a lie before you.
Also before this, the place I’ve built for us, which only exists in my head.

My whole life was about the endurance of pain or discomfort. Or to quote a line, I can relate to the line from a movie when the character says, “I’m fuckin’ Irish, I’ll deal with something being wrong for the rest of my life.”
This was said after the word “Capable” was being used.
Sometimes, I’m not capable of moving.
Sometimes, I’m incapable of taking the next step. Sometimes, my pathology and science grip me and keep me stuck.
I suppose this is the reason why I come here. This is the reason for all of my journals and this, above all things, is the reason why I come here the most; it’s to reach you.
I come here to tell you what’s going on. Or to say holy shit, did you just see what happened?

This is me. I’m just a kid who always wanted to know how to dance.
I want to know how to sing and perform. I want to learn and know things.
I want to understand how to have fun.
I want to laugh and not worry if I look silly or stupid.
I want to be open to the idea that new things are good things. 
Better yet, I want to regain that level of excitement from our youth.
This is when a Grandmother’s touch was more effective than penicillin. 

I want to believe again in things so simple and easy, like the man on the moon or the tooth fairy.
I say this because out of anyone else in the world, you know about my stories.
You know about my truths. You know about the boy in sixth grade who hit me with snowballs and made fun of me in front of everyone at the bus stop.
You know that this was my first true lesson in humiliation. This is when I first cursed myself for speaking out wholesomely and wished I never shared my excitement with anyone. 
As for being a kid, this is when excitement is at its finest.
Maybe this is why bullies love to take this away – it’s a theft, alright.
This is the biggest theft of all; the theft of wonder and joy.

I want to go back to the ideas of fairy tales because, to be honest, the idea of being strong or tough is no longer attractive to me.
Besides, I have enough scars and battle wounds. I have nothing left to prove.
The schoolyard is closed for me now and I’m not fighting anyone when class lets out, at least not anymore.

Besides, I’ve bled enough. I’ve lost enough.
I’ve missed out on so many things.
I’ve heard the echoes of a caged door as it rolls shut.

I don’t need to be right anymore.
I don’t need to be regarded so much.
I just need me, this, and you.

As a matter of fact, it takes a lot of strength to be weak. It takes a lot of endurance to wake up every day, win or lose, stand or fall, and there in the face of adversity – or should I say that in the face of what seems like constant adversity, it’s hard to keep your chin up and keep going in spite of life’s losses and humbling truths.
That’s tough enough.
It’s hard to dress up and show up.
But this is what we do.
Don’t we?
We get up and show up.
We might not like what we see; ah, but we endure it.
We endure everything even when it seems like we’re dying inside or when life is unfair or the timing of life is horrible; still, we show up on a daily basis.

You and I, all the time.
We might not get what we want.
We might not have a good day and we might miss more than we hit when we stand at the plate.
But hey, at least we’re playing the game straight. At least we’re not out here trying to change the rules because we simply can’t fall within the margins or throw the ball correctly over home plate.
There are no excuses here, not with us.
No, there’s just us and the way we think.
There’s our purpose and the reasons for us meeting the way we did.

We’re not looking to change the parameters of the game. No, instead, we’re going at it straight. We face ourselves in the mirror.
We see our inaccuracies. We see our flaws. We see ourselves through a misguided perception which is all due to a reaction of the life we’ve lived and the life we’ve come to recognize as a habitual pattern.

And still, we manage to find the strength to get up: All day, every day.

We’re not so different and we’re not so far apart.
I have needs too.
I have worries and concerns.
I have this fear that time is going to run out on me and no matter how I try or how hard I work; no matter what – I’ll never have the chance to successfully pull off my trick.

I call this sense of honesty a necessary means of awareness because this is what gets me out of bed each morning. I just can’t lose anymore.
Do you understand this?
I might not be well. I might have challenges. I might not be well-liked or cheered for but hell, even if they boo me, nobody can kill me. 

Not unless I let them.
By the way, when I say things like “they” or “them” I mean the people who calculate and act as the tally of my adversity.
When I say they or them, I mean my opposition, which is only as troublesome as I allow them to be. 
Look, everybody wants the golden ticket.
Everyone wants to hit the big time.
We all want happiness. We want comfort. We want to find that center in the magic circle of life.
We want to be good wherever we land.
But guess what, life is a challenge.
It’s okay to say this.
It’s okay to be hurt. It’s okay not to be okay and absolutely, without a shadow of a doubt, it’s okay to be honest and say “Goddammit!” and shake your head.

No really, it’s the truth.
So, let’s be very honest with each other right here. 

Right now. 

We are not too far apart. In fact, the air that fills the distance between us is only a minor separation because the truth is I know that you know everything about me.
I know that you understand.
It’s not so easy to find people like this; who get each other, who understand. Who instinctively know when something is right or when something’s wrong.

I couldn’t live without this (or you).
Then again, I don’t want to.
Understand?