On Love

Sometimes I think about how I've lost a lot of the things I loved. Sometimes people leave, whether they die or move on or sabotage a good thing. Perhaps I've driven them away, who knows? I don't think that I did, but you'd have to ask them how they perceived it. We all love in our own realities.

We lost other things along the way, too. We are fickle, we humans. Music or movies or books or TV shows we love can one day lose their luster. Material things breakdown or we lost interest. We grow, we change, and one day something doesn't hit us the way it once did, or some new song or movie connects with us on a deeper level. Something doesn't go with the new decor, so even though we don't have the heart to throw it away, we put it in the attic or the back of a closet, or hang it in the back room where we rarely see it anymore. We still have a fond place in our heart for them, but we've moved on.

Our heroes die or let us down, our artists follow their muse and we complain that they aren't as good as they were, and people just keep on being people, changing in their own ways, just as we do. Love is shuttling in and out of their lives too.

Then I find myself wondering if some of the things I loved were ever real. Maybe people were lying to me, and themselves. Maybe I fell for a slick marketing campaign and focus group research. Perhaps it was an impulse buy. Maybe I was trying to appease my peers, or family, and I talked myself into liking something that never really touched me. We are good at masking our motives, especially to ourselves.

I wonder how many things I've loved only because I needed to love someone or something at that moment. It happens. We are equally good at getting what we need and not even admitting that we needed it, or what our motives were.

We go on, careening our way through life, confusing love for a million other things, and giving it short shrift when we find it at times because we've cheapened it so much. There are times we lie in bed at night, sometimes next to the person we've tied our lives, our hopes and dreams to, and wonder if anyone ever really loved us at all.

Love takes on many forms, and has to run a gauntlet every day to survive, and at the end of the day most of us are lucky to have it in any capacity. So if you love somebody, or more importantly, someone loves you, cherish that now. Love is elusive and objective and it changes so much on both sides that it's a miracle we can muster up the courage to love at all.

We are brave, even when we don't realize it, and we are so much stronger and impressive than we think, but that's a conversation for a different day.

Today is just about love.

4/19/17

I'm a pretty cynical guy. I have a dark sense of humor. I make a lot of jokes about killing myself, and while suicide isn't a laughing matter, that's how I deal with the fact that we all wonder if it's all worth it sometimes. I'm probably suffering from some form of depression, but I want to make it clear that I don't think it's a chemical thing or clinical depression. I have a lot to be depressed about right now, some of it self inflicted and some of it just the way things are at the moment. When I'm not under so much stress and my heart isn't broken and my life in turmoil, I'm a pretty happy guy. I'm a pretty happy guy now, believe it or not, but I got a lot of things going on, not many of them good. The only reason I differentiate is because I feel it does a disservice to people that really suffer from depression, and even when their lives are going great they can't enjoy it and are paralyzed by overwhelming despair. My heart goes out to them.

Back to me. The aforementioned problems have me running a gamut of anxiety, self pity, hopelessness, and periods of hating myself. Not a lot of time left over for joy, but the thing is, there are still moments of joy. Everyday, no matter how many times in an hour I feel like I'm being crushed by it all, I can still find it in me to laugh, to take comfort in my friends, to sing a song or help someone else if I can. I still make stupid jokes, I still write my dumb TBT's and my little horoscopes. I don't get angry, I try not to be petty, I still attempt to find the good in everything. It's an effort sometimes, but it's better than the alternative.

No matter what, I will never become some bitter asshole. Okay, I might be an asshole sometimes, but I won't be bitter. There is too much in this world to celebrate, so much more good than bad, and if I'm not experiencing enough of it, that's on me for not trying hard enough. Sometimes when life grinds you down to a halt, it's hard to get moving again. That's when you have to start with baby steps, and build up some momentum, and before you know it you're at full speed again. That's the goal, and I'll get there. We will all get there, we just have to maintain some perspective and tap into that drive and sheer will that has kept the human race pushing onward through wars, famines, epidemics and being plucked off the savanna by giant eagles and sabre tooth cats.

Okay, for whatever reason I'm writing this, I'm done now. It is part pep talk for myself, and part of my ongoing quest to share way too much information about myself in the hopes that it helps you too, if for nothing else to let you know that you're not the only neurotic mess out there breathing the same air and eating too many cupcakes.

We are all unique, but all too similar, so good luck wrestling with your demons, navigating the crappy people in life, and dealing with the stress of everyday living. And if you're reading this, you are my friend, and no matter what I'm going through, I will try to be there for you if you need me. I'm wearing a little thin right now, but I got huge reserves I haven't even tapped into yet, so reach out and talk if you need to.

We're all going to be okay, I know it.

4/13/17

People can be stingy, and stingy with the things that they should be generous with. They hold back their love, they hold back their feelings, they hold back anything that they fear will be used to manipulate them or will be taken from them. They fear giving over a little control, even to someone they love, because they have been hurt before. Some of them will never trust anyone else, with anything important really, and they are just creating a prison for themselves to live in while they peer out from inside their cells and wish they could connect to anything. It is lonely and frustrating, for them and for anyone that tries to love them.

4/7/17

Sadly, Trump bombing Syria was probably the least wacky thing he's done so far.  There are a lot of delicate push and pulls as far as relations with our allies and our enemies with this action, and it seems like a flimsy excuse to retaliate against a country that didn't attack us, but we have blown up shit for less reasons.  It's horrible, it's heartless, and it's business as usual.  It's pretty obvious that this is Trump's way of diverting attention from his other messes and appealing to his base that blindly wants to kill people from different cultures and races because they are convenient boogeymen.  Don't forget, this is a man that got elected by promising to do something about all the scary Muslims. Oh, and by the way, while this was going on, the senate just changed the rules of the game and put someone on the Supreme Court.  What it means besides the fact that someone that appears unqualified in some ways to even be on the Supreme Court is that we are set up for decades of erratic swings back and forth every election cycle and more partisan bullshit.

Another thing that is starting to worry me about this train-wreck of an administration is that there is a vast(and lucrative, don't kid yourself) segment of the "media" whose stock and trade is to point out every single thing Trump does wrong or suspect and turn it into click-bait or memes that can be shared and posted ad nauseam.  It seems like every other day I see people sharing tweets from the election or years ago pointing out what a hypocrite he is. Thing is, we know that, and his supporters could care less about it.  I understand it's satisfying to prove your point and continuing to hammer this idiot, but my concern is that eventually it will just look like piling on and nitpicking and it will just make his supporters dig their heels in deeper.  Worse yet, people in the middle of these two factions might start becoming  sympathetic because they think he's being treated unfairly.  You know what they say about never underestimating the intelligence of the American people.  Everything is about perception and most people don't put as much thought into what they are perceiving as you do.  Hell, you probably don't put as much thought into perceiving as you think you do.  These are dangerous times, and I don't know what the answer is anymore.  People are desperate and the reptilian part of their brain takes over and they fight for what they believe in.  Sad thing is, fear usually means you make bad  decisions and there are very powerful and skilled people who's sole purpose is to use that fear to manipulate you into doing what is best for them, not for you.

One final thought.  This country was at a tipping point years ago, and whether you know it or not, 9/11 tipped things further than anyone ever imagined.  That was the beginning of the end.  It is still used as a cheap and effective way to manipulate and frighten us into doing questionable things, and if you challenge the validity of invoking that horror, you are quickly branded as unpatriotic and unAmerican,  and it is the favorite tool of unscrupulous leaders.  Our enemies hurt us far more that day than even they could have imagined.