Good morning, Sunday.
This is more than a letter, at least I hope so.
This is more like an extension of myself or the hopes to lay down the weapons. Perhaps this way, we can find a moment of peace.
I am told that my letters cannot reach you where you are now. I am told that you are part of the atmosphere or that you are simply elsewhere. Or maybe you are otherwise unreachable.
But I refuse to believe that.
I say that there is a debt to be settled.
And I already owe enough. So, I guess what I’m trying to say is that I don’t want to owe anymore or be stuck with the interest of a karmic debt.
It has been a long time. Or maybe it has been too long. Maybe I’ve been walking around for miles on end and, at the same time, maybe I’m walking in circles.
Perhaps I am doing nothing else but completing a circuit that should be removed or, at minimum, perhaps I keep plugging myself in to the same routines, or like we’ve always said about the definition of insanity, maybe I’ve been doing the same things, over and over again, and expecting different results.
Or, maybe us humans are always gluttons for punishment.
Who knows?
Perhaps this is my way of saying that I’ve borrowed enough problems.
I don’t need anymore of them.
Life has enough complications without my help.
(If you know what I mean.)
There are times when it seems as if we are at the end of our rope.
This can be quite literal. I agree.
And there are days when (I swear) it seems like nothing fits, nothing is ever good enough, and somehow, there are days when I think that maybe this is “just” me.
Maybe I’m the source. Maybe I’m the problem.
Maybe I am the key ingredient to the simple recipes of chaos and confusion.
If so, maybe I should change my diet for the time being.
You think?
I don’t know where you are.
I don’t know how far this note will travel and even if this does reach you, I’m not always sure that my intention is always the same as someone’s interpretation.
I know that life is hard.
I know that life is confusing.
I know there are justified fears which are real, by all means.
At the same time, I know that the mind can be an irrational place to be.
And I know that my thoughts can lead me astray.
I’ve been here before.
I know that there are certain unavoidable challenges that everyone will have to face. I know that loss is part of gain, and that death is part of life.
I know that my pain is all relative.
So is yours too, for that matter.
I know that into each life a little rain must fall. At the same time, I assume this idea of how much rain is only a little is relative.
I know that I have been told that God only gives us what we can handle, to which I have often replied, “well, I really wish that God didn’t have so much faith in me.”
I have been told about Nietzsche who said, “what does not kill me only serves to make me stronger.”
I know that I can relate to Jim Carroll’s version of this as well, especially when Carroll said, “what does not kill me, only serves to make me sleep until 3:30 the next afternoon.”
I get that . . .
Life . . .
It’s a trip.
I am not looking to talk about the things that did not kill me, nor do I want to discuss the things that took me away from myself.
I am not looking to bitch or complain or to lament, over and over again, and argue about the same things.
I am not here to tell you or anyone else about the peaks and valleys that come with life. I’m not here to bitch about the everyday things that we face, such as people, places, and things, nor do I want to rehash or relive what happened. Perhaps it would be better of me to say that I am not looking to debate or litigate the past anymore.
That part of my life is over now
However, I am going to say this, here and now.
There are certain unavoidable bumps in the road.
No one escapes this.
No one escapes life without a scratch, or a scar, or something invisible to the eye. Yet, like an unseeable hurt or an ache or pain, and no matter how invisible they may seem, we know these things are within us. We see them all too often and all too clearly.
Take our past, for example. Take our misguided memories or the crazy deductions we come up with when looking from the jealous mindset.
Take the remnants of our past, for example, or take to the recollections of the injustice or the intrusions, or the insults, and add them together. Add them with the included incidents and accidents, and all the damage-related ideas and socially created biases.
This is where our personal math becomes too flawed.
We add wrong and so, we multiply in a sense and worse, we divide ourselves in unfortunate ways.
Look at our personal mapping and the way we draw conclusions. In my case, let me keep this on me because it would be wrong for me to speak for anyone else.
Look how my thinking paints me into a corner and thus, I am afraid or reactive, like a dog, beaten and unfriended, or alone in a cage and waiting to die.
I don’t want this for myself.
There are certain tasks in life that are both unfortunate and unavoidable.
There are decisions that we have to make, which are far from good or glorious and they are even further from attractive or desirable.
But again, this is part of life.
We have to choose.
It has been said that everyone will encounter grief and loss.
I agree.
I agree with the idea that there is nothing harder than dealing with the grief from a loss that is centered around a person who didn’t even die. But due to circumstances that were both within and beyond our control, the loss is real and life changes color.
This is par for the course.
Life’s appeal altered and next, we have to learn to navigate differently. We have to change our habits, or in other words, we have to change our methods of dealing with our addiction to a person, place or thing, This is grief and this is the truth behind the sad and mournful loss of a plan and a person. Yes, this is the close of a chapter that opens to a new and unknown future.
This is the beginning of something unpredictable, which is equal to uncomfortable. While the past might have been uncomfortable too, at least we understood about the discomforts of a person, place or thing.
I can say that I have resigned.
But I have not quit.
I surrender, but I am not giving in.
I understand that my content here or the things that I write about in my journals, or in my letters, or prose, or in my poems are compiled of things that most people would rather not discuss.
But then again, I’m not here for most people.
I understand that no one wants to talk about depression.
I mean . . . think about it.
Talking about depression can be depressing.
Right?
I can say the same thing about my anxiety.
Anxiety makes me anxious . . .
Life tricks me.
People have hurt me, and yes, I have done the same to them.
This is a cycle which needs to be broken.
I am reaching for something—an olive branch, perhaps.
I surrender. However, my aim to surrender is not to give in.
No, at some point, I understand that I have to surrender to the things that I cannot fix or change.
I have to both accept and acknowledge that sometimes, life sets us apart.
Sometimes, we die when we’re alive.
Perhaps, if anything, I can say that this is why people part ways.
They don’t want to die while they’re alive anymore.
Or maybe this is what brings us together . . .
Despite the feelings or the discomforts, or regardless of the past and codependent addictions to people, places or things; there comes a breaking point, which is only a turning point. With all of my heart, or in my case, and as I see this now, there comes a point where the emotional addiction finds itself beneath the light of personal clarity.
I have to make a change . . .
This is not the end of everything. But more, this is the opening page or the beginning of everything else.
This is an introduction to the next chapter, or perhaps these are the means, or the needs, and the desire to find a new hope or in all fairness, I am not here to replace or retrace my steps, but instead, I am here to open up the gates and allow myself to find the thrill of something new.
Life only happens when we give ourselves the permission to live.
And I have to live.
I have to rid myself of the insults from within. I have to rid myself from the ongoing fights and stop the useless battles. I have to stop rehearsing arguments or fights which took place. Rather than relive what happened, I have to plan on the gravity to hold me down, so I can move forward.
I used to look to reverse gravity or to feel as if I were weightless, or walking on air.
I like walks . . .
I think about my walks, which I have talked to you about.
Remember?
I told you about how the sands at the beach can palm the indentation of our footsteps, like a cushion for the soul—and the waves, or the tides, and in and out current or how the waves break along the shore?
I see this as necessary.
I see this as undeniable representation that life needs to live and breathe.
I also see this as an undying connection to the soul and the spirit.
I see this as beautiful and happy. But also, I view this as a means to find solace, when the sad and perhaps mournful surrender needs to find peace so that I can permit myself to move forward and move on.
I saw beautiful things yesterday.
I suppose these signs were because of you, somehow.
I had the chance to feel the love from a puppy dog, and while in search for my four-legged friend, I am reminded that even unconditional love comes with conditions.
I am reminded that love is both living and breathing.
Love needs fuel and fire.
Love needs air to breathe and food to eat.
We have to feed the soul, which is why I am opening up like this.
No one escapes life without a scratch.
This is life, so, I assume this means that no one gets out of this alive either, which means that we might as well live now.
We have to change our path.
We have to change our patterns.
We have to stop repeating the same things, over and over again, and expect them to lead to different results—that is, of course, if we believe that this is the definition of insanity.
And yes, I’m insane.
I am certifiable.
I am lost, without question and perhaps I am too far gone, or too crazy, or too needy or too loyal to a dream that I’ve had for as long as I can remember.
I just want to be happy.
Is that so wrong?
I don’t think it is . . .
I think that at this point, now is a good time to lay down the weapons of self-destruction.
Now is a good time to tell my secrets to the upcoming sun, which is about to rise.
I can rid myself with this confession and just like that, I can come clean.
Even better, now is the best time to forgive the burdens in our mind.
Now is the time to pardon ourselves. I’m talking about a spiritual absolution, like say, how the waves crash along the shore and come in to pardon or absolve the sands of their old or unwanted debris.
I just want to be clean.
I want to be cleansed or rinsed and washed or bathed in the baptismal sense.
Do you understand?
I want to be cleansed, as if to be forgiven, or as if to find a personal amnesty, as in to be acquitted, or excused, and as if to be exonerated, or whole again.
My final word is a poem –
Little boys played in playgrounds
while young girls skipped rope
in innocent sundresses.
I love their innocence,
or should i say
how I worship them from a distance
for their purity,
and so, I regard my exit from Eden,
as a means of some unworthy escape.
This is their world, the kids.
perfect and untested . . .
Meanwhile,
decades ago in a town called East Meadow
a little girl chased the white feathery dandelions
behind an elementary school
called McVey.
She saw me . . .
mad and sad,
resentful as ever and facing the relativity of bad news.
I was hateful or perhaps one could call me evil
which I was . . .
At that time.
The little girl ran over.
She pulled two of the feathery dandelions
which were near my feet.
She closed her eyes to make a wish,
and then she took a deep breath
and blew the feathers, as far as she could.
I suppose she blew with intensity
as if this would make her wish come true.
She looked at me and she said,
“My Daddy told me that when I see these dandelions,
I can close my eyes and make a wish.
Then I just have to blow the feathers, really hard,
and my wish will come true.”
I asked her –
“What are you wishing for?”
She looked up at me with the purity of belief
and she said,
“For my Daddy to come home from Heaven.”
This is life.
No one makes it out without a scratch
and no one makes it out alive.
I guess what I’m trying to say is
I just want to live.
I think that we’ve all died enough (inside).
You know?
The Written Addiction 