One Big Joke

And then they shall see me.  And then they shall laugh.  And what makes me smile, laugh in delight, scream with joy from the top of my lungs down to the soles of my feet is that very sound I hear.  Thank you.

There is this feeling, it comes and it goes (but never leaves).  It has been with me for as long as I can remember.  Before it I could not really say, for its coming and its staying has shaped me into who I am today.  It has taught me many things.  It has showed me many places.  Carried me to this person and that, and I have always felt the opposite of empty because of it.  Because of it.

For years I have listened to it, let it scream out within my soul.  I let it inspire me, make my lips make words, my hands of gestures.  It would sit in my step and together we carried each other one by one and step by step.  It has led me to many faces.  It has help me say many things.  And though all was spoken and though those words were received.  For a while I had expected, wanted and desired a return.  That it would rid me of a loneliness that came from knowing such fervid words were mine and mine alone.  Such fire that burn and burn brightly thirsts for companion.  For what fire wants to burn alone, like the crumbling wax from a single candle.  It longs to burn its captors house, consume their walls, not to be lost but to bathe in the company of others.  To dance with a fire in the heart.

What are failures when there is nothing to be expected?  When intend is intended and where honesty is spoken freely.  From this plateau I learned not to be afraid but to believe.  And it is here where I did not find other but found myself.  Over time I learned that there is no shame in my thoughts and in my feelings, nor was the act of speaking and sharing ill of me.  For each day is a leap faith.  That for what I believe in is tested to see if it holds and if I am true to its revelation.   For words to become actions and beyond.  To change sight, mind, approach, and outcome.  No longer question where I stand and what I believe in.  For my feelings to be felt, and not to feel alone but to bathe in the greatness of the self.  Only to allow it to dissolve to the world surrounds it.  To allow the self to be other and to be given no form.  To fall between hope and doubt, I and you, and light and dark.

If we can't laugh at ourselves we can't laugh at each other.  And if we can't laugh at each other we cannot laugh together.  Momma used to say, you can do two things: cry and feel sad or laugh and feel free.  I don't think there was ever an option.

Sometimes we dance with strangers.  That we can be taken away for a moment.  The room grows dark and all there is is you, that stranger, and rhythm.  The act of dancing feels like a part of us that stems from our tribal days, how we used to be introduced to the opposite sex.  Rather than words the body did all the talking.  There is no lying when it comes to dancing.

And so we may follow a stranger home, no words spoken, just creeping into the night.  And so we may walk some lonely streets and climb some empty stairs to their living room or bedroom in a house where everyone is asleep.  And so we may act on the heat that still swells within.  That dancing keeps us warm and warm through the night.  

...

There was once a boy that sat on a cliff and watched the horizon.  Below him was a girl he liked dearly, and she liked him too.  But he wasn't there with her, he was up above sitting there in the red sand and looking off.  She was with another boy and that boy was the boy on the cliff's best friend.  They were in a shack kissing and touching.  She would stop every once in a while and yell up at that boy who sat on the cliff made of red sand.  She would say things like, "What are you doing up there?  Why don't you come join us?  You look so lonely up there, come down."  The boy would sometimes look down and give a smile.  He felt very strong when he did muster the strength to look down and just smile.  He knew his heart gained a sharp pain as soon as the thought of her, what she was doing, and how alone he felt, but he tried very hard to keep that pain away.  He was always lost in his thoughts and perhaps it was because in his thoughts he was able to escape that moment, that feeling of being alone, and believe that he was no longer in some small and forgotten town in the middle of nowhere in a state that some people didn't even know exist.  And in his thoughts he was able to gain in something else, something that he felt made him make up for the fact that he wasn't down there with that girl, kissing her, maybe even touching her.  

This isn't supposed to be a sad story.  That boy who sat at the cliff does not grow to be a sad person who has to lose himself in his thoughts in order to cope with the reality of his life.  That boy eventually grows older and though he can never escape that company of loneliness he stops pushing it away as if it was a stranger, as if it wasn't a part of him.  And over the years he grows peaceful and eventually even content.  There is heartbreak and many sad stories that come and then go.  Some linger for longer and some even define him.  But to spite all of this he learns what true love is.  

It has been months.  It is now a new year.  He and this girl have been through many beautiful moments and have felt many wonderful things.  There has been a lot of sleepless nights, lot of frustration, and cracks at sanity as well.  There was something he realized in an eureka moment.  His heart has been speaking so loudly to him lately and he has been a good listener.  What his heart said stopped him in his tracks like hitting a brick wall at full pace.  He needed to see her, he needed to tell her.  But it would be days before he can.  And so his mind was in one place.  Thinking about one thing.  There are many feelings and even more words he needed to say.  He decided there was no way to say it right and so he wrote it down in a letter.  He typed away and beat at those keys of an old typewriter.  His fingers weren't unable to keep up with his heart.  Words almost fell off the page until it felt done.  And so he finished and finished with the line, "...and now it is time to put this paper down and for me to say the rest."

There was a pause, he knew it was time, but that boy on the cliff, that red sand, that nowhere place, were suddenly in the room with him.  

When he said those words he wished he was suddenly alone.  That she was not there in front of him.  And that there wasn't that look on her face that was neither confused, frustrated, mad, happy, relaxed, but somewhere between not-sure-of-what-to-say and sad without being sad.  That something stirred within her, something that felt wonderful at that the same time made her feel guilty.  One tear fell, eyes were locked and what felt like hours went by.  Those were the hardest words said.  Those were the hardest words said.  But they were said.

It didn't matter what happened next.  What she said or didn't say in response, it wasn't important.  He just needed to say how he felt.  That he was no longer sitting at that cliff, looking off, lost in his thoughts, looking down, and seeing love, seeing something he couldn't have.  That wasn't him, he was down in the valley, looking straight at her, and told her exactly how he felt.  That was enough for him.  

This is where you come into this story.  Perhaps I'm not the best with words, that sometimes what I want to say I can't figure out how to say it without it sounding wrong, without it asking for a response, or asking for too much.  It may seem like only a few weeks have gone by, that we have learned about each other, and have had a few first steps into friendship.  But I have learned so much about myself in such a short period of time.  That you woke something up in me.  You have inspired me more than I allow you to realize.  That your presence is and has been one of the most refreshing and rewarding experiences I've had with someone in a long time.  That your acceptance, your kindness, and what you share, and learning of how hard you work for what you believe in has touched me.  I am working harder, I am learning how to accept others better as well as myself.  I have a fire within me.  

There have been many things that I have kept to myself, that I thought I had forgotten but have always been there that you have helped me realize.  And not only did I realize they were there I was able to accept them, share them, and that you were there to listen.  I am never content with just saying thank you, that I come from a house where if someone does something for you you do it back and you give them no choice.  That I need to return the favor, that I want you to realize that I am here as well.  

...

Now the sun is setting and the girl and the boy below take off.  The boy sitting on the cliff looks off and sees something that never gets old, that is always beautiful, that no words can dear describe, that is absolutely everything, and that can calm the saddest of hearts, the loneliest of loneliest, and take it all away in its presence...

(Again, this time with more enthusiasm) Shine on.

Push

There is an edge that we are racing towards.  Perhaps not racing, but moving, at whichever speed your attitude wishes to provide its velocity and whatever edge that is, good or bad, or neither and just neutral.  And perhaps we don't know where we are going.  We only believe we are going somewhere in order to fulfill goals and in order to feel like we have accomplished something.  Accomplished something because we believe in ourselves, in the path we create, what we say (whether it be self-expression, an art form, and our thoughts and feelings we wish to share) and what we stand for.

Sometimes our goals are met and when they are met, those of us who have more ambition than others already have future goals when present goals are met.  And so work is never really done and so we are constantly working.  Those of us who have more ambition than others.

We do what we do because we can't do anything else.  Not because we have no choice, that we lack talent or inspiration nor drive towards reaching another life and other goals.  We do this because we have a choice and this is what we must do.  We believe in it with all of our hearts.  We will struggle to keep doing what we are doing.  We will go against the flow, whichever flow that is, whether it be acceptance, popularity, what is the norm, and how people look and feel towards us.  We do it because we believe in it, even when people don't believe in what we are doing, or there are very few of which believe in what we are doing.  And to spite the resistance, the struggle, we keep doing it.  And there might be times of doubt, where we step out of our vision and our drive and look at our lives subjectively and see it how those who doubt us see it.  We might think to ourselves, maybe this isn't right, maybe all this resistance is there for a reason, and that it is trying to tell us we are going the wrong way.  And in those moments of subjective thinking where we see ourselves through the eyes of those who doubt us we lose some of the people like us when we start believing in that doubt.  They stop in their tracks and pursue another path.  They might end up happier and realize they found what they were looking for all along.  But for the rest of us, that isn't the case, that we stride to push forward.  Through the seasons, through the years, move after move, this success, and this failure, this step in personal evolution, and this attack at our very souls.  We keep going to spite it all.

We might feel absolutely alone in our vision.  In our ambition.  In our beliefs.  But that is when we must work harder.  We must push through.  And we must be reminded that we are never alone.  That there are those of us that care, that understand, and are in the exact same boat as us, doing their thing, and struggling the same way we do.  We may have never met, we may never meet, but we should always know we are never alone.  That the lives we lead send out vibrations into the world and those vibrations are hitting us all the time and that our mind and bodies are in tune with those vibrations, whether we know it or not, that we are part of that stream, that wavelength.  We are doing this, together, alone, all at once, and throughout history.

This will never end.  We will never stop.  We will keep going.  Until there is nothing left.

Because we believe in what we are doing.  What it means to do what we do.  And why it is so important that there is no other way for us.  Some may look at us as if we were lost but baby, we know exactly where we are, at all times, we are doing what we need to do, what our calling tells us.  And each day this calling cries louder, it's just sometimes on some days it is harder to hear, harder to move in the direction we are going, and that only gives us more and more strength to keep on doing this.

Never stop.