All For More (Or Less)

Of course life can be confusing. Just look around. Life is filled with confusion, changes, unexpected changes, and ups, downs, and somehow, there’s always someone around who loves to say, “Don’t worry, God has a plan for you.” Or there’s someone who comes along and says, “God never gives you more than you can handle,” which is hard for a person to stomach when they have no faith in themselves.

There are no words or explanations that make sense of life’s moving parts. Perhaps we understand things from an intellectual perspective. We know why water’s wet and the sky is blue. We know that plant a seed and plants grow. And we all know that we are born, we live, and then we die.
These facts are all true and unavoidable. However, there is an emotional piece to this puzzle. There are the irreparable damages that come with situations of abandonment, betrayal, pain and, of course, confusion. There are things that happen that leave certain indentations, if you will.
There’s real life and then there is our assumed life. Of course, we cannot forget about the life we want and the life we have, which is not always the same for most people.
In fairness, most people are unhappy with their life. Most are unfulfilled with their career and most are unhappy with their work life, which translates and blends to their homelife, which seasons their taste for life in both an unfortunate and unfavorable way.
This is common.
There are people who live their lives in a constant loop of events. Wake up, Get up. Go. Do. Eat.
Do some more.
Eat, come home, go to sleep, and this is their cycle of their basic and mediocre life. No big thrills. No great rushes of excitement. No tragic disappointments, except for the basic “more of the same” lifestyle, which is not to count family tragedies or loss of loved ones.
This is another change that we know about. We all know that one day, the time will come and our body will give way to the next stage of existence, which is nonexistent and left up to the memories of others who hopefully loved us, or at least we can hope that they liked us (a little).

No one discusses this, or at least not this subject. Emotions or emotional distress, confusion, or the empty feeling that comes with being lost or misunderstood seems to be untouched because real life often defies the moral lessons we are taught. 

We are not equipped to be racing at full speed at all times. Our mind, body, and our soul are not ready or equipped for much of what we witness while alive and in the flesh.

The ideas that teach about the golden rule, be nice, don’t hit, play fair, or the ideas like share, and how nice an idea it is to hold hands when crossing the street, and the most common decencies have all seemed to disappear at least to some regard.
Look at the news and listen to all the hatred and the reports around us. Think about all the rage about how we need to raise awareness about subjects like mental health.
No one is ever comfortable talking about their feelings. No one wants to be the odd one or believe that being who they are is a burden to others in their life.
I have heard people speak from stages about the help they need to raise awareness for people who live with drug or alcohol dependencies. I have heard people plea with their community to raise funds and awareness for suicide, which can perhaps be a preventable death.
However, there are groups, movements, foundations, and places to receive help and mental health support; yet, the numbers that count these tragedies are going up, despite our best efforts.
If this is so, or if it is true that mental health is declining and people are dying in higher numbers, then why?
It’s not like we don’t have access to help.
We might not like the places where help is available. We might not like the programs that offer help. We might not like the people who come to help us. But the idea that help is not available is not accurate.
In fairness to myself and to keep this testimony honest for the jury’s perspective – we always have choices. We might not like them. We might hate them. But there is always a choice, even at the darkest or bleakest moments; there is always a choice. 

It has been said by me that the world is truly a beautiful place.
There are so many incredible features. There are beautiful places that exist without the interruption of man or mankind.
The sky and the atmosphere has been polluted and perhaps the water sources are not as clean as they were before the world become industrialized; but even still, the waves fold on the beach in perfect rhythm. Birds fly. The sun comes up and leaves colors in the clouds. There are mountaintops, which I have seen that I can say the beauty of places like this restored my belief in God or that there is a higher power above me.

The truth is we know about the ugliness. We know about the devastations of manmade things and we know about war more than we understand the features of peace.
There are evil ones among us, and yes, they choose to shoot down our dreams or waste our pleasures like a targeted country, blown to dust by the savage hatred and nuclear destruction of our worst and best enemy.
Still, we know there are good people in this world. Not all have fallen from grace and yes, it is easier to see the sick or the poor or the problems we face as we live and breathe

It is easily argued that most people, if not all people who live outside of a protected shell or bubble, all of us, and I mean every single living soul will face adversity or find themselves in some kind of post traumatic event.
Some are more fortunate than others. Some can process their troubles easier. Some have harder struggles to face. Some cannot face them at all and otherwise, some will slowly or sadly die without ever knowing what it means to be truly happy.
Yes. We know this.

But if this pleases the court, Your Honor and  to the jurors of my peers, we are all survivors of something. We all have to endure. We encounter life on life’s terms. We have no choice but to process life as it unfolds. But additionally, I testify that life is always subject to change, disappointments, surprises and happy accidents as well.

As I defend my life with hopes to both expunge my history as well as apply for salvation or, at minimum, I can hope for least asylum in this purgatory which I call this, “the here and now,” of everyday living, I will uncover and unearth the truth of my life without prejudice and without the exercise of exaggeration,  or flowering the truth to shine anything else, besides the shining light of truth.

I was born like this. I was born this way with whatever chromosomes and with whichever wiring and chemistry that comes with my body. This is all true. I am free to claim my own DNA which is my first natural inheritance.

I learned how I learned, which is not to say that my teachers or that my parents were right or wrong or good or bad.
All this says is they did the best they could do with me.
I came into this world and I was born with my own challenges.
I was sickly as a young boy. I was weak. I never truly understood why people are the way they are. I was usually uncomfortable and always believed that I was somehow acting or playing with an unfair disadvantage.
Why me?
What couldn’t I be talented or smarter or gifted?
Why did I have to be the one who could hardly read our loud to the point where I stuttered? Why was I always the small one or the one less picked when choosing teams?
Why did I have to be the one who was always uncomfortable about who I am, the way I look or sound?
Why was it that girls always liked my friends and not me? And, if someone did like me, why did I always lose them to someone else?
Why did I have to live with the constant anxiety that something is wrong?
And yes, something is wrong.
No one is supposed to run at full-throttle all the time. No engine can survive or keep up this pace. Hell, even race cars have to come in for a pit-stop. Otherwise, they’ll blow, mid-race, and all would be lost.
My mind, or my body, or my engine cannot run like this. Race cars are designed to run at speeds like this and they even blow when they cannot idle (or calm down).

No one can be in high-anxiety mode at all times. So, if you cannot rest or “catch a break,” or if you cannot calm down or sleep, the mind will fail to the point that even the unthinkable options sound good or be appealing.

I was and still am the youngest in my family. I played different positions in this role. I was the mascot.
I was equally lost so therefore, I was the lost child and often the scapegoat. However, I was never seen or considered to be the hero, at least not until the later stages in my life.
I was never looked at with pride or seen as being successful until my past was far behind me.
Time and age and everything about me changed, down to the scientific levels of cellular changes that took place.

Even still, loops and past recollections from old or inaccurate memories, plus my insecure beliefs (or distortions) and thinking errors occurred; and like most others in this world, my thoughts responded.
I reacted in biased belief patterns.

To add clarity for the jury, I lived with trained assumptions, anxious beliefs, insecure fears and inaccurate truths that changed the value of my perception.
And, again, perception and opinion are not truths; however, these are true to me or true to the individual who believes in these truths.
Therefore, I believed the worst. I believed my fears were alive and well and, of course, all that could go wrong, would go wrong.

My physical insecurities were a bitch, to say the least.
I was a small boy. I was much smaller than the other children my age. I was weaker, thinner, or “puny” as I was called. I was unable to compete on a basic level or as I saw, I was incapable of competing with the average or the so-called norm.
Hence, my fear was I was less-than or abnormal like someone born with a defect that could never be salvaged or corrected.
I enter this as Exhibit C –
My life.
My insecurities
My truth and more than anything, it has been proven over the years that these differences make me no different from anyone else in this world.
Ironic, I know.

I did not have much athletic ability when I was younger. And I’m not sure if I am much of an athlete now. However my inspirations are not the same nor is my physical ability.
I was never someone comfortable in classrooms. I had poor retention, which made learning difficult and to which I admit that I was a young boy with unaddressed learning disabilities.
Of course, this stigmatized me as “stupid” or special needs, or so I thought.

I never seemed to fit well with other friends. I never had close friends until later in life. But please, I advise that this is not to say that I did not want to be close with people. Not at all. In fact, even when I sought to distance or isolate myself, out loud and in front of everyone; deep down, I always wanted to find that special group or friends.
I always wanted to feel the sense of belonging.
I wanted love too. I wanted to be in love. I wanted to feel that carefree feeling of what it means to absolutely have someone and nothing else meant anything to me.
I always wanted to feel the closeness of people who were like family. I wanted to create my own family or be vulnerable and true to someone without the fear that one day, they will see the real me, and leave, like everybody else. 

I know what the word theft means. And I know about theft of services.
I know about the need to find revenge or to recover my dignity and fight back.
I know about the saying, an eye for an eye, tooth for tooth. However, and figuratively speaking the response to this saying is true.
This way of living did nothing for me, except leave me toothless and blind.

Members of the jury. I admit to the nature of my wrongs. I heartily regret my actions that hurt or betrayed other people. But I am no monster. I am not a villain.
I am like you or anyone else who wanted more for themselves.
Yes. I took advantage.
But as for you, they jury and each of you as individuals, let me ask you, can you say that you have never taken advantage?
Have you hurt someone you loved or cared for?
Have you spoken unkindly?
Have you lied or cheated or stole in any way?

Perhaps the severity of my crimes are different.
But nothing is so different when we are fighting for our life and searching to find our redemption.It is a cold day in purgatory.
The wind is whipping through streets in downtown New York City.
I saw a man defecating in his pants on the E train this morning.
I heard someone else use the Lord’s name in vain and wondered if he would be like me, someday, and be forced to defend his life
so he can find redemption.