Just a Thought, Just Because – A Grain From the Hourglass

I suppose this was brought on by a dose of nostalgia.
This thought. This idea. I sip from my coffee,
breathe in and out
and then I sigh with an exhale before I begin.

The screen in front of my face is white and empty
but this is the one place I know
where I can come, which is open to me
and open to my interpretation,
and like the world at morning time,
fresh from the new sunrise;
Mother Earth is waiting, as if to say,

“Come on, son. We have work to do.”

So now, as I see it;
this old heart is not so old now, at least not anymore.
At least now that the winds have changed
and the warmth came
and when least expected, a bit of my life changed too
as I could breathe a little easier
and a little deeper.

I am willing to walk forward.
In fact, I am aching to come clean and
admittedly, and to claim my place in the circle,
I have decided to give myself the permission
to do what it takes
to make things so.

I am here beyond the impasse
and past the threshold of the crossroads,
I have moved beyond the confusion of indecision
and moving forward, I recognize one undeniable freedom
which is,
I am never too old to dream.

I am never too old to see
or too young to notice and I, sitting quietly,
look back at the assemblies of time –
and I, sitting quietly,
think back and sift through the moments of my life
which brought me to where I am now 

I realize that my love is true and therefore
my heart is true,
as long as I allow it to be
Yet, here I am, standing boldly,
chest out and chin high up to the heavens,
unafraid because my will and intent
have decided to overcome my fears
which makes me brave,
like only a young man
when he’s wild and eager.

Or, maybe this is a case of a man who’s grown
and in the realization
that time is ticking and that age is, in fact,
irreversible; perhaps this is a case of understanding
that it takes age to feel this youthful.

It takes an understanding that time is always moving
and that time is often wasted and that, yes,
time is limited and therefore
the plethora of tomorrows that come with youth
are dwindling away
right in front of us; but still,
I have this center in me.

I have this need to defy.
I have this drive to still be as young as ever
wild and crazy
lustful, willful and free
to go, to dare,
to touch
and to dance.

If at all though, if anything,
I have some small requests for you
which may sound huge,
but only because as small as they are,
these items I request are larger than life

So please, 
I beg you
Don’t be afraid of wonder.
Don’t miss out on the chance to dance
Don’t mind the rain so much.
Don’t forget to sing
Don’t worry so much about the wind or which way it blows
because, as far as we know,
the wind will never blow this way again.

And as for the sun, she’ll never look the same,
nor will the moon
nor the stars nor anything that we have together,
like this right here, right now,
because of all that I know,
I know that nothing could ever
duplicate the perfection of a single moment.

Nothing can ever look this way again.
And so, with all that I have,
I realize the only thing that I have is this:
my heart, which beats
and my lungs which breathe. 

I have these words,
which will be here for whenever you need them.
I have my love and my ability to rage.
I have my drive and my desire,
which is what keeps me alive.
I have these things, which openly,
as I sit quietly, the fact remains that this is all I have,
which makes this everything,
even if this is only everything to me,
then fine . . .
so be it;
then let this be everything to me. 

But, please
Never look back 
Look up, see the sky,
notice the changes and
catch a raindrop in your palm

Find a field and
look for a tree in the middle of nowhere.
I have a place like this –
it’s where my dreams come from;
it’s a place from my past, an old version of my Mecca
and a place where I died
so I could be reborn
and be who I am now.

Find someplace like this
and let this be yours, with no exceptions,
and let this place mean something to you
just like it means something to me.
Keep this as a lifeline
when you need it most.

Also,
Take this. This is my faith

This right here; this small grain of sand;
this is something that I held onto for as long as I could.
This is a grain from the hourglass of my life.
There will never be an equal.
There will never be a duplicate
and there will never be anything else in the world,
exactly like this or like us,
or like you and yes,
there will never be anything to match this.

This is a piece of me that I have kept secret.
Or, maybe I should scratch that –
I keep this as a piece of me
and hold it sacred.

This tiny grain, although small or at least it seems;
this is bigger than anything
because this tiny grain
which I have rescued from the hourglass of my life,
all golden and nearly transparent;
this is a representation of all that I have seen
and of all that I know,
and all that I have lived through.

I keep this with me, as a reminder
I keep this tiny grain of sand and I hold it sometimes,
like this, here in the center
in the palm of my hand.

I let the uneven edges roll around beneath the tip of my finger,
as if to stir this in the cup of my hand,
just to remember or to recollect the past
and come up with some kind of magic
to bring me to a place
and come back with a semblance of memory;
so that I can come to moment in my head
where I can say, ah, there it is. 

This note to you is about all of me,
exposed and uncovered.
I refuse to decorate this any differently.
This is me, uneven in some ways, imperfect,
and undressed in the sense
that I have chosen this place
to remove myself from hiding
so I can be me. 

I have some more requests,
of course, which again
I believe these are simple yet
I know that intellectually, we understand what simple means.
Yet, emotionally, it’s the simple things
that tend to be difficult.

But please,
I ask you
don’t be shy.
Live.
Love.
Laugh
And learn.

I have lived most of my life without the presence of self.
I have boarded trains, planes, buses
and sat as a passenger around my town
and around my City.
While viewing the world from a passenger’s perspective,
I have seen what happens to life
when it goes unlived or unclaimed.

I have seen what happens when life is not fought for
or celebrated. I have seen what happens
when we fail to see our worth and our value;
but more, I have seen what happens
when we accept trades
and take a lower worth
or forget to speak up
and go for what we want. 

My request, while simple,
I know that we tend to take the world for granted.
I know that we tend to let moments go
and we overlook the simple beauties of life,
until one day,
we start to recognize that life is truly fleeting
and life is absolutely short.
Wake up now, rather than later.
Otherwise, in your moment of awareness,
you’ll start to recognize the moments we missed
because of bullshit reasons
like pride
Now rather than later,
pay attention
I say this because in my ability to look back
I can see how my attention was elsewhere
and my focus was on something so important at the time
which I thought this meant everything, until finally
I realized that really – it meant nothing.

I don’t want to miss another moment.
While I understand there’s no going back,
I keep this little grain of sand with me
to remember that while there’s no going back
and since there’s no skipping ahead;
the only thing I have is this moment now.

I can’t relitigate the past.
I can’t change what happened.
I can’t unsay what I said or undo what I did.
I can’t do anything about what happened
so, therefore,
I can’t butcher myself for the missed opportunities
and certainly, if I want to be young again
or happy,
I have to understand
that I will never regain a sense of composure
by reliving old decisions
that resulted in unfavorable ends. 

I’ll never be happy
reliving old conversations
that didn’t go my way.
No, I have to let those chapters close
so I can write the new ones
ahead of me.

I am about to close this journal.
But not yet.
I have some more things that I need to get off my chest.
I have more to expose, which internally,
my inner demons reject this idea
because it spoils their plans
to keep me where I was.

This old heart is not so old right now.
Am I scared?
Sure, I’m scared.
I don’t know what the future holds

But then again,
that’s the magic of realization
because when you realize who you are
and who you want to be;
you find the drive to do whatever it takes
to make it happen – or as I always say –
to pull off your trick
and make it so