There’s a time when all is too confusing. And there are times when the truth comes out, which can be good or bad or painful, or not.
But in the end, there is a time when life is revealed—and there’s a time when deep down, I suppose there’s a piece of me (or us) that always knew. . . .
There’s a piece of me who knew that deep down, this was just a pipe dream, or that this was all a bag of fantasies, and in the end, the truth came out, and the blinders came off, and all the warning signs and all the red flags become so apparent that you ask yourself, “What the hell was I thinking?”

“Why did I go back?
or “Why didn’t I get away when I knew I had the chance?”

I suppose I was somewhere around the age of 18 or 19 when I started to realize that I had been lied to.
I had been stolen, in a sense, and corralled in another.
I was misled by own blindness and misguided by the inaccuracies of my environment and my peers and the poor assumptions of leadership in my so-called surroundings. I was taught by imperfect teachers and believed the lies of those who were fed the same lies before me.
It’s a torch, or a baton in some relay race and, yes, the word race fits well in this entry.

I am mindful of my own imperfections. I am mindful of my thoughts the trickery of my old beliefs. However, I am mindful that I have grown. Because I have grown, I have come to the understanding that the depth of my love can outweigh and reach further than the span of my hate.
At the same time, love and tolerance leads to vulnerability. Vulnerability allows for weakness. My hate used to despise these things. Then again, I used to despise everybody –
because I was taught to.

I never think much about the old days or the crazy ones that either degrade me as a person or that link me to an old stigma which says that since I was “this,” then I will never be anything but “that.”
I don’t like to think this way
(anymore).
I never think much about the dark places or the underground hideouts, or the broken-down buildings, condemned and lightless, but yet, the life of the people within them was darker than the worst of midnight and the souls who sunk down along the floors or nodded off in stages of synthetic bliss were equally as damned and as condemned as the buildings where they would hide.

Let’s be brief . . .
What are you going to do when the moment is at hand?
Are you going to sit and watch? Or will you take the shot or take the risk and run with it?

I’d rather run with it
And go. . .
I’d rather feel the thrill. I’d rather take the bull by the horns than sit and wish or waste another minute and find myself wondering whether something “big” could have happened (or not).

They tell me that procrastination is a symptom for something else.
And do you know what I say?
I say they’re right.
I can say that I procrastinate. I say there’s a reason for this. Whether the reason is the way I value something on my priority scale or whether I delay, or whether I pause out of simple laziness or defiance is always tied to a fear or some tension-based thought or an idea that leads me to overthink or fail to launch.

There are times when nothing prepares you for the moment at hand. And there are moments in life when we have to act. But at the same time, there are times when we stall, or we pause, or we fail to move or take an active step. There are times when we wish that we had said what was in our hearts. Or maybe we thought that somehow, we’d always get another chance.
But life is funny this way.
Isn’t it?

Like I said, sometimes the “when,” moments are not so bad. Some of them pick up the branches of memories that fork into different channels and lead us to tunnels of thought, like the time when I first heard music from one of my favorite bands.
I was so young and unaware of music at that time. I knew that I liked the sound. I knew that I liked the words to the song. And I could tell that there was something about this, or something deeper, but I was too young to really understand the lyrics.
But either way . .
Do you remember the time when you heard one of your first favorite songs?

Time is a strange thing.
What I mean is a second is only a second and a minute is only a minute. Better yet, to take this further, an hour is an hour, and a day is a day, but time is always moving, and the clock is always ticking.
It always amazes me how time is always the same; however, if time flies when you’re having fun, what does this say about time when fun is far away and pain is close to the heart?

It’s amazing to me how a year can pass and somehow, you look back as if time never moved—or maybe time moved so fast and last year seemed like it was another lifetime ago.
How many times have we looked back and shook our head because in fairness to the truth, we have no idea how we survived the worst.
How’d we get through it all?

Sometimes . . .
The “when” moments are not a bad thing. For example, there was a time when I reenacted a chapter from the first book I ever read. And I say this mindfully because I did read before this. However, those books are something which I would call mandatory reading. This book was different.
This was the first book that I ever read from cover to cover. This was a great piece of work. But more, this was a book that was written by a hero of mine.
Although, unknown to him, I am nothing more than a fan—at the same time, the book was a piece of art. This was the first time I ever read the work of Robert Fulghum.
Yes, he is a real hero to me.

I have spent years this way.
I have been on a search. I’ve been looking and waiting and wondering or hoping that, if at all, one day I would find my way.
I’ve often looked around and wondered how challenges to me seemed so simple to other people.
Is it me?
Have I done something wrong?
Was I out the day they taught us about the word tenacity?
Or am I like the underdog, cold-nosed and hungry, and able to endure pain or the neglect and the rejection from your common, everyday crowds?