White lines trail across the sky. I love this.
I love how they symbolize the exhaust from airplanes that passed overhead.
This is beautiful to me.
I love the lines of feathery clouds that leave behind a provocative story of an airplane that flew to a destination unknown.
Provocative.
That’s a great word, I think.
I have not been on a plane in a while. And who knows if I’ll ever be on a flight again?
Maybe soon.
Maybe not.
But I am not here to ante up or play that hand at the moment.
All I can do is play the hand I’ve been dealt
For now. . .
In my head though . . . I have my bags packed.
My bags are always packed in my head
At all times.
I am packed and ready to go.
I could go at any moment and without notice.
Just go . . .
I say this because I paused too often and balked at too much and in the end, I watched the best things move on to someone else.
And then I sat there asking, “What about me?”
I might not have much at the moment. And to be clear, I might be tired and run down.
In fact, I know I’m tired.
I’m run down.
And yes, I’m down.
But I am not out
At least, not yet,
I might be disheartened and I might not be at my best.
But the one thing that I can account for is that my imagination has not aged.
No.
Not at all.
Age has not taken away my ability to imagine.
My imagination is still resilient.
I am able to dream. I am able to wish and I am capable of envisioning myself elsewhere.
Like now, for example.
I am elsewhere, of course, and I am with other people too, which is not new or news to anyone else.
I am elsewhere and with other people, but more so, I am elsewhere like a passenger who is alive and well and living as a witness to God’s most beautiful creation, or more namely you because what would Project Earth be if I didn’t have you by my side
with me . . .
with you
Age has not taken this from me.
Age has not intercepted what reality proves to me, each day, which is dreams are free and plentiful but the seats business class and the flights on American Airlines are expensive.
I know.
Age has not swiped my desire. Age has not taken my dreams from me.
I can say my dreams and desires seem distant and that my dreams seem out of reach at the moment.
But they are not dead.
They are not deferred.
then again –
I am not dead either.
If anything, I am being reborn in some ways and going through what I would call a restructuring period. Therefore, dreams are what they are.
Life is what it is.
I am who I am.
My dreams and my hopes, my wishes and my aspirations have not aged nor have they changed.
Perhaps they look different from what they used to be.
maybe . . .
They may not have the same rhythm and they may not take place in the same settings as my younger wishes.
But my dreams are still young at heart
Too bad I cannot say the same for my mind and body.
No.
But at least my spirit is intact.
At least my soul still hopes and dreams the same as I did when we were young.
Young . . .
What a word this is.
I cannot say that I want to be young again or that I want a second chance to relive my younger years.
No, I think I would rather my years be unchanged and that the results will be successful now, which is why I say that this is a period of restructuring.
I have not fallen down so far that I cannot see up.
I have not seen anything so irreversible.
And, too, I want to stay young
But what does this mean?
Is age just a number?
Is age a state of mind?
Is time as undefeated as they say?
And if so, how can anyone compete with the impending loss, which comes for us all at an inevitable pace?
I want to be fine with simple excitements, like, say, when my Grandmother made me the very first breakfast sandwich that I remember.
This took place at 100 Lincoln Road in Miami Beach,
The sandwich itself was simple
But the flavor was unmatchable to this date and the love that took place was unlike anything else I have ever experienced.
I remember my last breakfast in Miami, which was not too far from this very spot.
Miami does not look like it did when I was small.
But the feelings I have from those days are alive and well.
I keep them with me
and you too.
I keep you with me
What does it mean to live?
What does it mean to live a full life, regardless of the time we have left?
What does it mean to be pleased with basic things?
Say, like the sight of a cardinal in the morning on the way to work, or to see a random butterfly and allow myself to feel that youthful curiosity.
You know?
And when I say that simple curiosity; I mean the idea that perhaps maybe, this is a visit from someone watching over me.
Ah, to live . . .
To dance the dance and to sing the songs or to do as my Mother once told me and “Don’t sweat the small stuff.”
I suppose the terms between big and small are relative.
To live.
To love like nothing else matters
To have someone, to hold them, to love them, or to make love to that one, most special person in the world.
And even more –
when you make love to them, you do this like this is the only way to save the world.
My world!
And more, to live would mean to live every day with the idea that God placed me right here for the best purpose of all.
And despite the flaws and all of my setbacks, and regardless of the votes, either for or against me; to live means to be unhinged and to realize that my happiness is not contingent upon anything else but this:
To be me at my truest self
No masks
No disguises.
No acting
No pretending.
No reasons to lie
And no reasons to hide.
I have been told that it is not what happens to us . . .
It is how we handle what happens . . .
This is what makes all the difference in life.
I know this
I understand
And life?
What do we do when life hurts?
Or what do we do when the world turns itself upside down?
How do we defend ourselves when we get hit so hard or so badly and so deep below the belt that we can’t stand up?
What doe we do when we do not have what it takes to regain our composure?
Or what happens when we lose everything, including our endurance?
What do we do when we lose our way?
What do we do when we live and we love and in the end, we found out that we lost all we had?
I wonder about these things.
What comes after the realization when we find out about our emotional bankruptcy?
What comes after the fall and you hit bottom?
And what happens when your bottom has a trap door and you fall again, only to realize that we have nothing left and seemingly, there is no reason to get back up . . .
then what?
What makes me beatable or unbeatable?
This is the greatest question of all.
What makes someone successful and others failures?
Even if I am beaten or beyond repair, what makes me different from those who lost just as much?
What about those who lost all they had, and what about the people who lost three times as much and somehow, they came out ahead in the end?
I have seen people who have been burnt and beaten and dragged through the mud.
I have seen people who were “run through the mill!”
I have seen people take far more damage than I have ever taken.
Somehow, they stand up. Somehow, they regain their composure and they walk on, as if the world could never beat them.
They are my heroes.
I want to be like them.
I have seen people take the biggest losses of all and somehow, they continue.
They move.
They live and they learn and they grow.
They went through hell and somehow, Heaven was always on their side.
Always.
Age has not taken away my ability to dream.
Age has not robbed me of my aspirations.
If anything, age only reminds me that time is short and tomorrow might never come.
Trauma does not have the right to hijack our life.
(anymore)
So, here I am God.
I am restructuring.
I am rebuilding.
I am hurt and struggling.
I am broken
But I am not done.
Not at all.
And one day,
I’ll be on that plane to a destination unknown.
And you . . .
With all of my heart
I swear that you will be right next to me
On our way to Fiji
Or something like that
saying “thank God this is real!”
The Written Addiction 