My last entry mentioned the difference between the skin I want and the skin I’m in, which is not to say that there is a discrepancy between the two. No.
I can say that like most people, I am an eventual and inevitable. I am a work in progress, much like the rest of us are.
I am improving on a daily basis. While I find myself in the face of a new beginning and overcoming new obstacles, I am still here and still making my rounds and waking up, each day, one morning at a time.
I can say that I’m growing. We all are.
But . . .
The troth is we all grow in our own stages or progress or regression. We learn. We move on. We step forward and adapt to a new cycle of life.
Sometimes, we circle back to the beginning. We come to a moment where the light comes on in our head. This is when realize that we had what we needed to begin with.
We always did.
There comes a moment when we realize this.
Then we open up to a brighter promise. We might experience new things, if we choose to. If we do, we can soar to new heights. We can surpass our limitations and be more or go beyond any idea we ever had.
Happiness is out there folks.
Trust me.
Life happens in stages. This means nothing to someone who is in the middle of their own shit or suffering or living with a crisis or a crisis situation.
Life is like the seasons. I know that you’ve heard me say this before.
I know this is something that I say often because often enough, I can see how life is purely cyclical – like winter, spring, summer, fall.
This is us too. We have our own seasons.
And please. I will ask you to excuse the religious reference but life is like it says in Ecclesiastes – there is a time for everything and a season for every activity under Heaven.
We go through highs and lows. We experience life as life unfolds and it’s true that each life is unique in its own rite. So it is equally true that each life has its own regard, its own purpose, and to the soul, we all go through, see, learn, relate and interpret life on our own level.
Nevertheless.
This is unavoidable. Life, I mean. And death as well.
I remember being told, “you only live once.”
I was also told, “You only die once,” too.
However, and respectfully, I beg to differ.
I would offer that yes, we do live every day. We wake up to a new life, each morning.
Each morning is a moment that comes with opportunity to have a new life.
This happens each day. We can change our mind. We can change our direction. We can choose to move forward, turn around, withdraw, or resign to start again.
I would also propose the fact that we die more than once.
Perhaps we die in stages. We die with losses and heartbreaks.
So, if that were true, then we are equally afforded the right to be reborn and/or possibly repaired and revitalized. We can submit and surrender. We can stay as we are or remain equally broken, if not worse, we can live or die, depending upon our choices to heal, adapt, overcome or recover.
We can do any of this.
Live once or die once?
I say that’s untrue.
I call bullshit . . .
There are figurative deaths and literal deaths. Yes, there are times in life when pieces of us die; whereas, in the case of life or in the moments where all is flat or uninspired and life is acquiring dust because our life is being unlived; and in the disputes between our best interests and our worst fears, it is possible to die alive. Equally, it is also possible for us to bring ourselves back to life.
We can do this.
We can take the risk. We can make a break for it.
We can live and choose to restore ourselves to be above or beyond, to reach the next level of life, or to go beyond that stagnant plateau of basic, or normal, everyday complacency. We can surpass our own worst mistakes and overturn our internal judgements – to be free from our own persecution and thus, be we can be free.
It is possible to build a life at any given moment. And I get it. Time is always ticking, which means now is a really great time to start.
It is equally possible to rebuild our life. Yet, in fairness to our truths and to validate the weight of emotional content, I do say that uphill battles and struggles are not easy.
But it is an attainable goal to overcome any setback.
I have to acknowledge the fact that there are those who walk around numb or feeling dead, as if to be existing in a life and being lifeless, at best, or to be like a witness or like a piece of something faded or lifeless, like an old fallen leaf that has dried and fell into a slow-moving stream, lifelessly swept into the abandon, forgotten, meaningless, and lastly, this is the perfect embodiment to fit the description of a joyless life—vapid or empty of all, uninspired, unintriguing, unfulfilled and joyless. Yes, joyless because none of this is loyal to our best life or honoring our best interests.
How could anyone find peace this way?
Where is the passion?
Where is the fulfilment?
Where is the spice or the elevation?
Where is the breakthrough, which is like standing on a high peak, like a mountaintop where the air is cool and crisp and as clear as all of heaven’s light?
Where is this? Thus, where is the great big, “AH!” as if to say, “Finally!” Where is the victory in a life where there’s no conquest, no search, or adventure?
Where is the thrill of a stagnant or loveless life?
No passion.
No touch to thrill the senses.
No feeling to thump the heart within your chest and no tears when you see love’s eyes looking back into yours.
There’s peace here.
I know there is.
I mentioned the skin I want and the skin I’m in.
I say this openly about myself and yes, I speak about this openly because there are people who live in a life which is stuck in a trap between the two.
This is why people struggle. This is why people struggle in silence.
Most people fail to come forward.
And there’s a reason why.
Most people will sit still before opening up and they will surrender to themselves before reveling their truths. And yes, there’s a reason for this. We live in a fear-based or shame-based society where stigma is real.
Plus, nobody wants to be a burden or an unnecessary weight – or dead weight, as it seems to some people. No one wants to be rejected or unworthy. Nobody wants this yet most people never step forward to free themselves from this kind of bond.
Most people succumb to this way of thinking because as much as we want more and as deeply as we hope for more to come; or if we wish for the better or the brighter times to come; still, most people suffer in silence with their own “unwantedness.”
Most people point and persecute. But they never dare to point inwards.
Yes, their judgements and persecutions are about them.
This is their judgment and hence, their judgments on you is a projection of their own persecution of themselves.
So, pay the judges no mind.
Besides, they have no official power.
(Unless you give it to them. So, don’t do that!)
Many people will “go along to get along.”
Or they’ll “fake it until they make it.” Or they might act “as if” and remain stuck.
The reason for this is because people often lack the ability to step forward. The skin I want. The skin I’m in
See what I mean?
It is hard for people to come out or be their authentic self due to a lie within themselves.
This is the problem with the internal judgment. People will remain in their own personal swamps or sink in their emotional quicksand – either because of an inaccuracy in their belief system or perhaps this is a problem with their application system. Thus, they cannot connect their know-how to the essential bravery it takes to make that first step.
More often, and perhaps this is often relatable, countless people walk and meander through their superficial life and even if they know their existence is a lie, they do nothing.
We see this all the time.
We see these people on a daily basis.
I used to be one of them. And maybe I still am, except when I’m here (with you).
People like this can be around us yet they scream out loud in plain sight but in they’re screams are more actions and loudly in silence which, to them, appears like a hurtful insult.
“Doesn’t anybody see me?”
“Does anyone even care?”
The insult here is it seems like no one takes notice, as if their life unnoticed, or unseen, or mainly unimportant because to them, the truth is they are otherwise uninspiring.
Usually, this goes undetected. No one knows, at least not really.
People live their life this way, suffering in silence, and wilting or withering in their stillness because unfortunately, they lack the belief that they are worthy enough. Of course, they lack the belief that their dreams could ever be true.
I am a person who can claim the above.
This is true to me which is why I do what I do.
I do not fault my depression anymore.
No, I am not my depression; however, depression has always been a part of my life.
Fear too. We go way back, like car seats!
I can say the same with insecurity and anxiety. Of course, let’s not leave out the doubts or the bullshit, ongoing conversations, which takes place in the head.
I have those too.
I do not fault these things anymore.
I do not blame my depression.
I do not blame my past.
I do not blame the unwanted shames of unfortunate betrayals, abuse of any kind, the childhood memories of unwanted things or touches.
Instead, I see these things as parts of my life that were equally moving and equally, this is what led me to my breaking point.
I came to a point where, simply put, I couldn’t take it anymore.
My depression is not me.
No.
And my depression is not the problem.
No.
My depression is an accumulation of my symptoms, to which eventually my mind and my body either exploded or imploded and yes, I shut down the reward center in my brain.
So, with no hope, no prize, no risk or reward, my system took on the chemistry of a failed mindset; in which case, I would often ask myself, “WHY BOTHER?”
Well, here’s why . . .
I want the mountaintop.
I want the daybreak moments like this morning, early as ever.
I looked out from the window before the sun took the sky.
I saw the horizon in the southeast. I noticed the birth of the sun. I noticed the sky was about to witness the day’s first light.
I saw this through the cracked-open window in my shower. I washed myself of my yesterday and my yesterday’s guilt or sins.
And too –
Yes, we live each day or we die each day.
This is how I see things.
But, in the spirit of the title and in the spirit of this journal, if this were true, then I have to ask, what do you want this day to look like?
What do you want from this moment?
What do you want today to look like?
It is morning at our little spot in purgatory.
I say this because no matter what, this is not hell.
Not at all.
Not by a long shot.
This is not to say that I have seen hell.
But I have seen hellish things and hellish places.
So, in defense of the day and despite whatever troubles we face –
It looks like we picked a good day to open our eyes and wake up.
Now, we can see.
The skin I want has to become the skin I’m in
and the life I want has to become the life I live.
Live or die . . .
the choice is ours.
I know what my choice is for today.
Do you know yours?
The Written Addiction 