LEARNING LOVE, LOVE LEARNING

LOVE

I am learning again about this thing called love.

For a long time I have kept myself closed off from it.

I like to justify myself in that. I tell myself I have good reason.

But is there really ever any good reason to be closed to love?

It is hard to let something into your very spirit and let it change you.

And that is what love is. That is what love does.

It burns and melts and swells and drowns you all at once.

It breaks and mends and hurts and feels amazing.

It is everything all at once.

I threw my heart into this deep chasm so that it could never be reached.

And that has worked... because not even I could access it.

And it is dark in that chasm.

And it is cold.

And it changes the things that reside in it.

To survive you must adapt.

So my heart has adapted and evolved. But not in a good way.

It is cold. And it has darkness on it and in it.

There is a hard shell on the outside; thick and strong.

It keeps you from feeling. It keeps you from caring. It makes you apathetic.

And when I went searching for this heart of mine.

It could not be found.

I hadn't eyes to see anymore.

It was lost to me.

Then a cataclysmic deluge filled the chasm and all that was in it began to rise.

And it tried to sink and it tried to escape but my heart could not.

From residing in the darkness it had grown weak.

Malnourished, deprived of the thing it was meant to be.

In the rage of the waters rising ever higher my heart was beat.

It crashed against each boulder and misplaced feeling that had so long hidden in that darkness.

And little by little the shell began to crack.

And the cracks became slivers.

And the slivers broke away.

And inside...

Inside was my heart as I had never seen it before.

It was broken and tattered. 

Chunks missing and odd bits and pieces sewed in their stead.

And before, I had thought how ugly that was.

But now?

It glistened and shined and beat with new hope.

At that moment when I saw my heart.

Years discarded and all but lost.

That was my first lesson in love.

Because I had thrown it away, abandoned it.

But my heart never stopped beating.

It never lost hope like I had.

And little by little it mended the wounds I had long forgotten and adapted to keep the tissue tender for me.

My heart knew.

My heart knew that one day I would learn.

The day would come when love could change me.

And while I gave up and I discarded that piece of me...

It beat on. It kept loving. It stayed open.

The shell kept my heart from dying.

It kept my heart from losing any light.

It protected and prevented any further damage.

And when the shell finally broke free.

My heart could soar and fill me.

At least that is what I hope for love to be...

I hope as I learn what it is.

Love will have taken over and resided in my heart all along.

And if I am wrong...

DANCING THROUGH LIFE

HAVE YOU EVER NOTICED...

... how many things in this world dance.

If you think on it perhaps you will begin to see just how many.

Raindrops               Leaves               Dust               Light               Birds               Fire    

Clothing on a line dances in the wind.

Shadows sway and dance in the twilight sun.

Trees swing slowly back and forth in the billowing breeze.

Music flows in and out and up and down.

All are aspects of dance...

Flow                    Grace                     Serenity                    Peace

Lips shift and stir as they speak softly their words.

Fingers dance upon the keyboard with each tap of key.

Thoughts flit about within your brain, attempting to make sense.

With the blowing of wind, all nature moves and swings as if to express a spirit deep within.

Fire licks and quivers with the lightest breath.

For what do they dance?

Is there a message in this?

Or is it nothing at all?

Simply a mind ablaze...

Over-thinking          Imagining          Dreaming

Is it a fantasy?

A deep desire for there to be more.

Is it seeing beauty where it lacks?

Noticing beauty when it is subtle...

Creating beauty where it isn't.

Make the world around you dance;

because you cannot.

Make everything fanciful simply to make things...

bearable.

Create

Believe

Hope

See

PAY ATTENTION AND LET GO

THE TIME HAS COME...

To pay attention to the constant deluge of sage advice and encouragement.

For one reason or another I payed very little to no attention to the constant reminders from various sources that it is time to let go. I have not wanted to let go for many reasons. One of which being that letting go means starting again, and that is simply terrifying. Or not so simply...

Also I do feel like I am owed some things. 

But I know that nothing I feel owed will ever come. So it is time.

Time to stop barely holding on because it is at least familiar. 

It is time to let go, even if that means having nothing. 

Starting at scratch. At least I am getting to start again, right?

You wouldn't think it should be so difficult to let go of negative things that are ultimately only hurting you. But you would be wrong. 

It is hard. Any form of letting go is not easy. It hurts to end something. Especially something like a relationship with someone.

Even if that relationship has only ever been negative and hurtful. 

I heard an analogy recently about why divorce is so difficult; I found it to be a wonderful, visual description.

If you take two pieces of paper and you glue them together, they become one piece of paper. But when you try to pry the two pieces apart, they don't come apart easily. They rip and tear and shred. THAT is what divorce is like. You cannot take two people and bring them together and eventually break apart without some damage and harm coming upon them. Separating two lives that had become one back into two is beyond hard. And it hurts more than words can ever describe.

Sometimes good thing's hurt. And that is unfortunate. But eventually the pain will go and new things will come. And hopefully they will be wonderful and positive and worth the former heartache. That is my hope. I hope for a better tomorrow. I hope for a brighter future. I don't want this to be the end of me. I still want my "Happily Ever After". As much of one as I can get, anyway. One day this will be in the distant past and I will hopefully be able to look back at it and say it molded me and changed me for the better. I believe that I have grown from this experience. I only hope I am not wrong...

TAKE HEART... BE STRONG!

PAIN AND ITS FALLOUT

I have sat down to write this many times. I have never really succeeded. I don't exactly know why I so feel the need to write it. To be able to properly describe a feeling with words is quite difficult. There are more than enough words to describe every emotion, every feeling; but somehow I can never find the right ones. I identify so much with this feeling and I just want to be able to put it into words. The trouble with that is that it is very possible there is no way to accurately describe it.

In the midst of some troubling times I have felt many thing's. Thing's that I find difficult to really come to grips with or understand. I have been so emotionally hurt that my entire being physically ached from the pain...

 My limbs shook and burned and trembled. 

My heart physically ached as if it were slowly filling up; on the verge of exploding. 

My eyes welled in overabundance with tears. 

My breaths labored, struggling to take even a fragment of air into my lungs. 

My words mangled in my throat, unwilling to give me permission to speak them out into the universe. 

The words I so needed to burst forth from within me. 

Every touch burned.          Every glance stung.          Every consolation fell upon deaf ears.

And then the fallout...

Such pain is difficult to describe and more so to recall without dredging up the memories of all that crashed together to bring the pain about. But I have a deep seeded need within me to describe this instant. This moment when everything could be felt and nothing could be felt all at once. Like the death of a star, resulting in an explosion that creates a black hole. A pain so big it maims you permanently. It changes you. And what little is left behind could end up being catastrophic.

I would like to think that no one else could possibly understand all that I describe. I want for no one to feel that pain. But I am certain I am not the only one. Perhaps my need to write about this is so that someone out there can see they are not alone. Other's have been there. And survived... To this point anyhow.

While maimed and waiting for catastrophe to strike, I am still here. And that has to count for something.

THE HIP HOP GENERATION

I am not very fond of hip hop music. In most cases it is simple minded, vulgar, and nearly entirely musically inadequate. I realize that saying so could very well be a major faux pas with this generation; but I am also not of the mind to care if it is socially unacceptable to dislike or disagree with the musicality of what is hip hop music today. 

I say all of this because for me it is shocking and comes entirely as a surprise to find a song that I like coming from this genre of music. I have dabbled in every kind of music. My tastes have changed and adapted over time as is to be expected. For the most part I am very loyal to the classic rock era, and find very little pleasure in the majority of today's "music". I would consider myself a bon vivant so to speak. I enjoy music almost more than breathing. My collection ranges from 1920's club music to the music you may hear in a club today... House, drum and base, and who could forget dubstep. I have an ear and appreciation for music in general. In my wide collection there is very little rap or hip hop music to speak of.

As I said, to my surprise today I found a song I quite like. It is mostly lyrically appealing. The rhythm and orchestration is well put together and even pretty. When I looked up the lyrics to the song it only made me like the song all the more. Reading through the lyrics I feel the song speaks well to me. That perhaps is one reason that I so identify with and adore music. An artist putting into words thing's that I feel and singing it out with great passion; it's beautiful! I looked up more by this artist and found I like a few of his other songs. I also quite like how he arranges his music in an unconventional way. He uses strings and acoustics and piano, not just drum beats and incessant cursing. He often features artist from extremely far removed genres than his own. His voice is aesthetically pleasing as well. His lyrics hold meaning and weight. It is nice to hear someone in the hip hop industry creating music that isn't simply about sex and drugs and gangs and money. 

All of that to lead up to the fact that I just want to post the lyrics on here. When I find music I really love or identify with I love to take note of the lyrics. To archive them so to speak. I like to think that at some point I will come back to this and I will read the lyrics again and it will mean something. Maybe my life will be so different than it was when I identified with the lyrics. Maybe it won't be. Maybe I will simply reminisce. Maybe I will find I don't like them even remotely anymore. I suppose I just like to document these thing's. These thoughts and feelings. That really is it...

B.o.B
"Ghost in the Machine"

Tell me where am I supposed to go? 
And who am I supposed to believe. 
If only you knew what I knew. 
Then you could see just what I see. 

So I grab my bags and go, as far away as I can go. 
Cause everything ain't what I used to know. 
And I try to hide, 
But I just can't hide no more. 
There's nothing worse than feeling like a ghost. 

You say I look fine, 
If only you knew what's on my mind. 
You'd see a whole different side, 
I couldn't show you even if I tried. 
I must have got lost in time 
When I found out I was only free to be, 
Wherever I want to be. 

Some say I'm out of sight, 
How ironic and that we're all so blind. 
If you could open up your eyes, 
You could see what I couldn't describe. 
And then, you'd see the signs,
And then your soul would be set free, 
And then you'd be released. 

So I grab my bags and go, as far away as I can go. 
Cause everything ain't what I used to know. 
And I try to hide, 
But I just can't hide no more. 
There's nothing worse than feeling like a ghost. 

Tell me where am I supposed to go. 
And who am I supposed to believe. 
If only you knew what I knew. 
Then you could see. (Hey) 

So I grab my bags and go, as far away as I can go. 
Cause everything ain't what I used to know. 
And I try to hide, 
But I just can't hide no more. 
There's nothing worse than feeling like a ghost. 

And I'm terrified, like I've seen a U-F-O. 
Cause everything ain't what I used to know. 
(ain't what I used to know)
And I try to hide (try to hide)
But I just can't hide no more. 
There's nothing worse than feeling like a ghost. 

(I go) 
(A U-F-O) 
(And I'm so tired of hiding,
I've been running, I've been trying, to get away, to get away) 

So I grab my bags and go, as far away as I can go. 
Cause everything ain't what I used to know. 
And I try to hide, 
But I just can't hide no more. 
There's nothing worse than feeling like a ghost.

(Lyrics copied from SongMeanings.net)