I admit it. I’m a big baby. I admit that I am afraid of needles. I admit that I am afraid of the dark. I admit that I have both rational and irrational fears. I admit that my fears have distracted me at times and that my anticipation of a situation is often worse than the situation itself.
I admit that I have given way to procrastination. I admit that I have submitted, forfeited, sabotaged, self-destructed and self-medicated to placate the symptoms of a problem that was buried beneath my behavior.

There is too much going on at once right now. I can see that I am not alone on this one.
In the last year, we have seen more losses than ever before.
I hear people talking about our “new normal,” but is this it?

There are things in life that I never had. Some of which are simple things like a brand new 10-speed bicycle. Some of which are the basic rites of passage. For example, I never played a sport on a school team. Some of what I never had are the understandings that come later in life. This comes when maturity sets in. And I’m not sure if I’m mature yet. I’m not sure what I want to be when I grow up. Then again, I’m not sure if I’ll grow up or if I want to. At this point, I am near the age of understanding that who I am is exactly who I am supposed to be.
I understand now that everything has its place. Perspective is everything. Hence, there is a purpose for everything. Hence, there are reasons why and reasons why not. And perhaps this is too broad. Or, perhaps this is a bit too vague. But to me, this is as clear as the sunrise that is taking place on the other side of my window right now.

Know this:
Know that words have meaning.
Know that even the simplest terms can have the most powerful and profound effect on someone’s life. Everything we say has impact.
Everything we do has impact. Everything in life moves in an inevitable, eventual and unavoidable way.
Imagine a lake.
Imagine the quiet. Think about the surroundings. Think about the emptiness. Think about the toss of a rock in the middle of still waters. Think about the plunge and the ripple effect; whether the rock is big or small, there is always an effect. This is the same as the words we share.

Here are my concerns. And to keep this simple, I think it is only fair to call this out as it is. This is only a concern. This does not mean my ideas are fact or fiction. This only means that there are some people that forget about the dangers of life when they are safe and carefree.

This is who we are. We are this.
The truth is we are so many different things. Aside from being a person, we are what we see and what we think. We spend time worrying too much about things that are less important than we actually believe. We can all be trivial at times. We contemplate. We anticipate and predict. We find ourselves in a routine to create a source of comfortable understanding. This way we can come to an understanding. Or, if nothing else, at least we can find a way to tolerate the pace of everyday living.

We are a compilation of events and ideas that mix with emotions to become our feelings. We procrastinate from time to time. We are smart in our own way and ignorant in others. We are literally all of this. Yet, we are so much more.

There is a strange phenomenon that happens in the middle of real life. Everything is moving at full speed, but yet, there is a presence of mind, like say, when you’re falling down and in the middle of the fall, you have the presence of mind to know that you’re falling and yet, there’s nothing you can do but say, “Oh shit!”

This is my heart. Does it look any different to you? Can you see this? Can you hear it? This is my soul. It contains all that I need to think and feel, breathe and dream.
Do you see?
Perhaps, I can show you.
I am a series of ideas and a chain of events. I am the backbone of my soul. I am the way towards my fate and yet, I am the only factor that can ever hold me back. I am a young boy around the age of six or maybe seven. I am the realization that not everyone plays fairly. Not every memory is a benefit and not every lesson is taught by the appropriate teachers.

It was after nightfall on the beach in San Diego. I was about a half mile north of Mexico. The moon was full and beaming down on the surface of the ocean. I had never seen a place like this before. I had never seen the moonlight intermingle with the waves like this. I never saw a pier that reached out from the land and stretched high above the shoreline and reached out into the water. I never saw anything like this, except in movies. I never felt the feelings or smelled the smells. This is partly what made my trip so memorable to say. Perhaps this was memorable because there is nothing like this in New York. There are certainly no palm trees. The sunrise was different here. So are the sunsets.

I’m not sure if you remember this but back when we were little kids, there was this thing called The Cootie Shot. Remember?
There was a rhyme to it that went “Circle, circle, dot, dot, now you’ve got the cooties shot.”