I have seen it. I have seen it all. Or at least, so I think I have.
I have seen everything.
I have seen the sun come out after the rain.

I have seen the sun go down and I have watched as the gray skies overtook the heavens. I have heard the calm before the storm and witnessed as they came in quickly and silently, as if to prove that something serious is about to happen.
The world is always taking place.
We know this.
I know that time cannot stop nor be rewound or interrupted.
Nothing stops the hands of time. Not life or death.
Not the blasts from a nuclear explosion.
Not the brakes on a car when the driver overestimated their safety.
Nothing stops.

inspired by an old friend from an old life

You have to pay attention to the task at hand. Get up, keep going, run into yourself at the front door and yes, there are times when it seems like the candle is burning at both ends.
And so, the burn out seems to be inevitable. 
The sober life is my only life.
Yet, I do not question this and nor do I function in the circles where criminals swerve to intercept the light and change what we see –
to suit their needs

Early morning. Rise and shine.
I wake up and wash my face.
I wipe the sleep from my eyes and try to prepare myself for another day in this so-called life of mine.  

And looking up from the bottom always makes reaching for the top seem impossible..
At the bottom, the top look so high and so far from my reach.

I know . . .

So you say you want peace, is that right?
If so, then I have a question.
What does this mean?
I ask because maybe peace is not the same to me as it is to you.

What does peace look like?
What does peace feel like?

I am convinced of one thing.
The mind is the greatest obstacle. I know this. 
I know this because I have lost before I started and I have quit before I’ve tried.
I am not the only one who has lost this way.
Not at all, but at the moment, I am the only one here and you are the only one with me.
Or, so I hope.

I’ve lost to a belief system and old or outdated thinking errors that cause me to believe in failure or lead me to the disbelief that I can advance and surpass my own limitations. 

I took an early drive this morning to clear my head. Then again my head was heavy and my sinuses were not too kind to me. So, I was up early.
I was on the road but the rain came suddenly and fell so hard that the rainfall interrupted my attempt to make a conscious contact with God as I understand him.
Sure.
I pray.
Why not?
What’s the harm?
If anything, I see prayer as an action, or more, I see this as a method which helps my awareness because even if no one is out there and there is no God to care or listen, what’s the harm in voicing my needs and claiming my humility to gain a better life?

I admit it.
Yes.
My mind is always going. I am always rethinking, always calculating, always trying to decipher between safe and alert and tired and danger at the same time.
Ah, the benefits of overthinking.
This is exhausting, to say the least.
I am talking about my own overexcitability that keeps me going at a speed that y body cannot contend with.
No one is meant to run at full throttle all the time. And no one can keep up with a pace like this.
And even when I want to pause or stop or rest or do something, like, sleep through the night without waking up, the mind is always going off on tangents and worrying about the incoming missiles which are invisible and coming from from enemies that do not exist.

There is something to be said about catastrophic thinking and how these leads us astray.

This is to you folks.
This is to you, the moms, the dads, the married and to the divorced and all the in-between people in this world.
And this is to you too.
Absolutely, this is to you!
This is to the kids, the sons and daughters, adopted, step, and to the biological and the otherwise.
This is to the brothers and sisters or the people who are connected by the fabric of this thing which we call family.
This is also to you, the mismatched lovers who wish for more or wish they were elsewhere.
Find your way.
Make is so and above all else . . .
Do not waste another day!

I am famous for saying how today is just another day above the dirt.
And it is.
And that’s all this is for most of us. Today is just another day above the dirt.
This is always so for those of us who are alive and breathing and living to the best of our ability.
I have often told some of loved ones that today is a day closer to something. And I might not know what that “something” is and I might not get what I want.
But I know that I am a day closer to finding out.

In the meantime –