It was exactly one year ago today on the eve of the New Year, and like much of the world, I was hoping that the upcoming year would be better than the one before it.
It has been a long time since I’ve seen the beach at Point Lookout.
But is the place for tomorrow’s entry.
Not today.
I look back in hindsight, of course, which is perfect now that I see through eyes with a new perspective. I look forward to ending this chapter or to ending this journal tomorrow.
But again, that’s for tomorrow’s entry.
Not today.
I look back again and in hindsight, of course, which is perfect. I think about the motto that can be found on the state seal of South Carolina, which says, “Dum Spiro Spero,” which translates to. “While I breathe, I hope.”
And me, or as I breathe?
Yes, I hope so too.
I have looked into the origin of this motto and came to a Greek poet from the third century by the name of Theocritus, who wrote, “while there is life, there’s hope. Only the dead have none.”
I think this can be seen as brilliant too, or as it was written by Cicero, “While the sick man has life, there is hope.”
I think of the masses. I think about Midtown, New York City or the mad rushes and rush hour nightmares on crowded subways. I think about the mindlessness of the crowd and how people walk, eyes downwards and focused on a small screen of a cell phone, reading or responding to an email or text. The world has become so impersonal and gone, or at least distant, from personal touch.
I think about the “me first” sentiment, which is what I see when trying to make my way through the day, or finding myself on the hunt, or making the dash to be downtown, on time, so I can get back to work.
I think about the sea of people; literally millions of them, and everyone has an angle, and everyone has their own agenda, and to each their own and for everyone, we all have our own crosses to bear.
I’m sure.
It would be not only arrogant but childish of me to act as if I am the only one who experiences trouble or shame.
I am not the only person who lived through pain, nor am I the only person who lives with pain or discomfort, or fear. Nor am I the only person who exists, who feels, who finds myself lost, or who experienced life, or an otherwise daisy chain of traumatic events.
Life happens to everyone.
Rich or poor.
In sickness and in good health.
Life happens to everyone. We might not see this. We cannot see the invisible scars on anyone else. And nor should we.
There are times when we share our truth with people. There are times when we choose poorly, and share ourselves with someone who is untrue, or we share our hearts with someone who uses our weakness so that they can show strength.
I am not the only person to have hurt feelings. I am not the only man in this world to have setbacks and I am not the only person to fall from grace, or be humbled, humiliated and shamed, or exposed before my peers.
I am not the only person who has experienced a public display of cold-heartedness, shamed before the masses, blackballed, or blackmailed, slandered and trampled under the unkind heels that stomp around the conveyor belts at the rumor factory and the gossip mills.
Who am I?
Who am I to claim weakness or to consider myself disabled?
Or in a sense, as if I am now and forever altered or harmed by an old existence that happened, long ago, when the trauma was fresh, who am I to be weaker or stronger?
I am not the only person to have been abused. I am not the only person who was picked on, or beaten, nor am I the only person who was made differently, nor am I the only person who suffered from unfair hands, or in the case of traumatic events, there are people who have seen, heard, endured, and live with far worse than I.
So who am I to complain?
However, and as for the case when it comes to the motto of, “while I breathe, I hope,” and to follow up with Theocritus and his words that offer, “While there is life, there’s hope.” and how he finishes this with, “Only the dead have none,” I hereby offer my own sentiment.
I declare that I am not dead. However, I do understand what it means to be dying alive, or to be one who lives in the deadly shadows of grim and doubt.
Sure, I want to feel high. Of course, I do.
I want to feel the world at my fingertips. I want to feel love, both given and returned, circling back and forth, like the rotation of life, or like the seasons, winter, spring, summer, and fall, I want to feel the joy of each.
I want to experience life in the sense of a child, where everything is new, as if all is seen for the very first time.
As I live and breathe, and as I move once more around the sun, and as my side of the hemisphere tilts closer to the sun and then moves away, like winter, spring, summer, and fall, I want to experience the birth of each season and have love for each time. Nothing is more important than the next.
I want to know how to live in the moment and enjoy the scene. I want to be free enough to come to an understanding conclusion, which is also known as acceptance, and to accept, as if to both know and understand who I am, what is free to change, what is unalterable, what can improve, and what can never changed at all . . .
To know this is to know oneself, and to know oneself is to understand what the word “self” means. Therefore, to know this means that no one can come in, no one can impose, and no one can hurt me with truth because I know what the truth is.
I know who I am, good and bad, faults and all.
Therefore no one can encroach upon me or impose from an unseen or surprise attack. Therefore, so long as I know me and accept and understand who I am, no one can hurt me.
I will never be a victim again nor will I volunteer to be a victim or allow myself to be victimized by the codependent need for one to exhale, just so the other half can breathe in.
Breathe, as in breathing in and out.
Like the cycle of life, see?
Where there is life, there is hope.
And I agree, only the dead have none.
However, I can see and understand when people tell me about their own lifelessness. I can relate to the absence of warmth from the hand and, of course, I can relate to the brokenness or the beaten feeling of being on the ground.
Yes, of course I can.
I can relate to the humiliation of being the fool for believing in something that was not true.
It would be unfair and untrue to walk, talk, act, or think that I am the only one who went through something like this.
It would be arrogant to yell and scream and to rage about my selfish discontent. It would be a shame for me to act as if I am the only one who fell, or who was hurt, exposed, or led astray and deceived.
I am not the only one in the world.
Therefore, I have no right to bitch or complain or declare that I have been done wrong or that my field of play is not the same as anyone else.
I have no right to claim a disadvantage. No, not while I have the advantage of breath because as I live, I breathe, and as I breathe, I hope.
Correct?
I am coming to the end of this journal. I am sitting now, of course, and in my heart and in my dreams, I am facing you.
I am trying with all that I have to appeal to you, as if to plead for you because the dawn will go down and the sun will rise, the day will end, and at the hour of change, this year will be gone and next year will begin.
Sure, I have a past. And sure, I have demons. I have doubts and worries and feelings of heartbreak and, of course, I have fears of the dark and the unknown.
I am afraid that I am unlovable or that I am only lovable for a short-term period, and therefore, nothing lasts forever, at least not in my case.
I have traumas. I argue with myself. I have bouts with memories of humiliation or in plain language, I am afraid to be the fool (again) but at least I can breathe — and even when the losses took my breath away, I could still breathe, and thus, I can still hope.
And so, if I can still hope, then I can still love and, therefore, I know there is love out there for me.
Love, as in to have and to hold, in sickness, and in health, for richer or for poorer, until death do us part.
I know this is real.
Sure, I have traumas that stole from me.
So do you.
So does everybody.
Do you know what that makes us?
Human.
Until death do us part.
The Written Addiction 