To be a better person

There comes a point when you realize that sometimes, relationships aren't necessarily about connecting.  Sometimes, there is no eye to eye, spirit to spirit, mind to mind melding of souls.  Often, relationships down here do not resemble anything like what they were meant to be.  Sometimes, the other person is more screwed up than you are and all you can do is try to look at them through the eyes of God, instead of through your own eyes, because your own eyes are blinded by pain.

But then, if you let go, and let God in, He provides the exceptional strength to deal with sadness and longing, regret and disappointment.  This is my cross to bear, and while it is just as heavy as before, I am stronger now, and better able to support the weight.

Life isn't always about being happy.  Life is about becoming a better person.  Life is about rising to the challenges thrown at us, pulling out our battle gear and fighting the demons that plague us.  Life is about letting the difficult things mold us into the person we were meant to be.  Life is about hoping when there is no reason left to hope.  Life is about choosing to be happy when there is no reason left to be happy.

The Garden

From Coucoumelle :

I'm thinking the Garden of Eden isn't so much a physical place that disappeared from the earth after Adam and Eve were banished, as a spiritual place that's been here all along, that we just banished ourselves from, through sin. In this garden, we truly can walk naked, in fact, to walk naked is a requirement, because here, there is only honesty and beauty and truth and the things that cloud your vision of that are gone. This is where you meet God, and this is where, if you let someone else in, you are free to see each other as you truly are, and to love, not despite the imperfections, but through cherishing and finding the beauty in those same imperfections that make each person distinct.

Sometimes, when the weather is calm, I light a couple of torches and I sit here on the beach in the dark and I just am. With God. And when I am just being with him, there is no language, and there are no problems, and there truly is nothing missing, I just am. And nothing else matters. And I think, I am free. Because nothing else matters. You can't be held prisoner by something that doesn't matter. And I don't mean that my life doesn't matter, I mean that it doesn't matter that it isn't perfect. It doesn't matter that it isn't even close to being perfect. I can keep on going and I can still be happy, because there IS something that is perfect. And I realize, whenever something bad happens, I can just escape to that happy place in my mind, and walk naked in the garden with God.  There are moments when I quite simply live inside my mind.

As a teenager, I would often go down to the beach not far from my house, to walk along the water and think, and commune with God and nature. I used to do my best thinking there. I have always loved shorelines. There's just something about all that open water in front of you, and the wind, and the gulls circling, and behind, the trees rising up, tall and strong.  You have both worlds at the same time on a shoreline. The openness of the water and the closed-in space of the forest.

Everybody's broken

Bon Jovi says it best with this song:

Welcome to the party 
Come on in and disappear 
You're feeling like a stranger 
But all your friends are here 
Little lines and cracks 
Around your eyes and mouth 
Something's trying to get in 
Something's trying to get out 

There are days when I think I am broken beyond repair, dysfunctional inside.  I am incapable of appreciating good things.  I am incapable of communication when it matters.  I hide behind a thick skin but inside, I bleed.  I think I may never learn to communicate properly.  I've been hiding behind thick skin for a long time.  It's funny how sometimes, it isn't the big things that hurt you most, but the accumulation of little things.  I think I am better off alone on my island.

I have allowed the words and inaction of one person to poison my life, when the words and actions of all the others should speak louder.  Why should words spoken so long ago by one person still have such an effect today?  Why should I even care, when these words came from the mouth of someone
hurt by life and more dysfunctional than I am?

It is time to get over it.  I am not the sum of words said to me, and my happiness does not rely on the actions of others.  I will make my own happiness.