It is a pretty Sunday morning in Purgatory. The autumn weather has settled down for the season and most of the leaves have fallen from the trees.
You can smell this in the air too. You can smell the wet leaves which are stuck to the ground after last night’s rain.
The streets are wet.
The sun is out for now and the wind is blowing pretty quickly. The scattered clouds and the colors of dawn were beautiful this morning.
I love this.

It is clear to me that life moves. And yes, so do we.
So does time and so do the chapters in our life, which somehow brings me back to a full circle.
I swear, I have been here before. yet, no.
I know that I haven’t been here.
At least. not like this.

Another morning comes to us here, in Purgatory.

I hate this part. I hate the smell of the courtroom. I hate the feeling of impending doom; but more, I cannot stand the feeling of being judged or being held as guilty until proven innocent.
But we seem to be this way. We seem all too quick to accuse or to point fingers. We love this and this is common. We come from a species who looks to assign blame, especially when it comes to the emotional crimes in our life.

As I stand here to defend my life and the choices which I have made, I find that I have to pose some questions to the jury of my so-called peers. I further offer this question to the prosecution before they rest, and yes, I ask this question to the judges as they sit in human form and to those who plan to deliver and execute my sentences.

In the case of Me against Me or I against I, I understand that this case is pending and simply ongoing. However, in the case when it’s Me against The World, or in the case of my version of The World against Me; I question if I am the only one who has ever had to live through this kind of litigation.
Are we all so different?

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.

I have come to the understanding that everyone reaches a point or finds themselves at some kind of crossroads in their life. This is not uncommon or rare by any means. As it appears, and in fairness to us all, no one escapes or gets out of this place alive.
Or at least, so I am told.
I would like to begin here and state for consideration that there is a history behind my pathology, or science, as it has been termed.

I go back to the earliest of my remnants and sift through the memories that dig up the unearthed portions from my beginning.
We all have this. We all have a beginning, a middle, and an end.
Perhaps the mapping from my past and the experiences will act as testimony to provide substance to my story.

I admit that I have been “there” before. I say this because I am no better, or worse.
I am only me. But you and I knew this a long time ago.
I remember this well. I remember the different times and the troubles with chaos.
I remember the spells of outrage and desperate needs.
I have lived through this somehow, and somehow, I am still alive and here to tell you about this.

I am not one to say that I am tough or strong. I would not call myself weak; however, strength and weakness are both relative terms.
I know all about what happened, what took place, what I did, and I know why too.

I will do my best to make this opening statement brief.

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I am here to enter my plea of guilty, not guilty, no contest and to the best of my ability, please allow this to benefit the jury’s deliberation. Therefore, I offer myself as a witness to my own faults and misguidance. I will expose this, both clearly and patiently, so that when the jurors come back as hung and with no decision, you can all go on with your life and I can go on with mine.
We can split now and separate here, if we choose. Or when this is over, we can depart in the spirit of Rudyard Kipling’s 1892 poem, The Ballad of East and West, and we can say that once our deliberation is done and whether the tensions or the wars we fought go settled or otherwise, we can face each other and say “Never the twain shall meet.”