Endure

Why am I doing this? What's the point of it anyway. I see myself, my mirage, across this chasm...and though I cross it, I always wake up back on the other end; the end with no light. It's as if the side in which I reside most, this darkness, is where I belong. Like I started here, and therefore forever I'll be drawn to it. It's my home. My first peace, for I was born in it. It's all I've ever know.

The other side of the canyon was something else. Something different. Not necessarily brighter, but definitely a bit...eye-opening. Things don't seem to blend together anymore or blur at the edges. Things have ridges. Depth. Am I awake for the first time.
This other other side, where I first saw my mirage, offers clarity. Offers hope. Offers something I wasn't aware I needed or even existed. Now, I look back, and see it all. All the hopelessness. What's there to live for there? Science? Wealth? And what does that mean once we're gone. Nothing at all.

I see the mirage again. But it is no mirage. It's real. It's me, and all I could ever become, and now, it's in reach. There is no chasm, there is no wall. It's here, right in front of me. But bits and pieces of my past dig inside me, like thick splinters. Others have crossed the chasm and brought with them, knowledgably, the darkness from the past. They spread it, like a disease. They infect and laugh it off, ignorantly.

I keep falling back, further and further, deeper and deeper backwards, until I'm no longer on either side, but in the chasm...in the deep, deep pit.
And what can I do?

Endure.

jacked up.

I can't do it. I just can't. There's this twinge in my heart; in my lungs, that I cannot move nor shift. It's like there's food stuck in my throat. Like I bit a huge piece and no matter what I do, I can't find any water, and the glass is right in front of me. Like I'm missing something right in front of me. Something in my heart. In my spirit. Air just can't reach my lungs. Salt in my wound, and for some reason, I just keep pouring. What is it? Why?

I'm on the verge of breaking down. I've conviced myself for too long that cutting these corners is alright. I mean, who isn't? What's wrong with me? What kind of a Christian says that? What kind of a man running full force at God just stops and begins making his own path just inches from the real one? What have I become? What have we become?

We've blended our lives, our cares, our...addictions, with this pure ideal, and out, instead of a beatifully selfish blend, comes this blob. Of insignificant, impure, childish thoughts. There's nothing pure anymore at all. That's the point of becoming new. Letting go, completely, of the things of this world...and yet, I just can't seem to. What's my problem? Where's my reasoning? Where's my freaking brain?

The Calm

Not once did I think I’d find peace in a place like this. Desolate and barren, free from man, fields of earth that flowed almost endlessly. Nature roamed the way it was supposed to, the way it was created to. It didn’t have to adapt to the ways of the world. It just was.

Truth is, I didn’t even want to go there. Truth is, I didn’t want any part of it, to be honest. I was so mad, and so bitter, and so envious. It seemed like everyone else got sad, and then got happy, but I was stuck at this all time low, forever, without hope. This fall, this deep rivet I was in, that I told myself was all my fault. I was so mad at God. My heart felt so heavy with this hate that it felt almost as if the hinges by which my heart hung in my chest could not hold the weight of my heavy heart much longer, and with any more sadness, it would fall so much farther than I ever could have thought possible.

I was stuck, in the middle of this dark, musky, damp cell, and it seemed as if there was no escape. But there was something about this place, away all other things. Sadness coupled with that peace, knowing that not only had I ever seen such beauty, but also that very soon, knowing how the world goes, most of it would all very soon disappear forever. Already, little signs had been popping up here and there of man’s compulsive drive of expansion as we drove along the country road. Oil wells scattered the Texas plains, blemishing the serene landscape. Texas had uniqueness to it, one that can’t be found in most other places around the world. And shockingly, it felt as if in my heart, as we drove towards the ocean, our one day at the ocean, that quite possibly, this terrible trip I resented, might be my one way out. Out of this stupid rut.

As we reached the final stretch of road leading up to this quintessential point of my trip, I readied myself to immaturely run as fast as I could to the beach as if I’d never see a beach again. But this place, that I told myself would do no good for me, became the exactly the point I was waiting for. As the van came to a halting stop, the doors opened, letting in a serene, crisp air. A perfect blend of heavy country plants and light ocean air rushed past my face. My senses went nearly berserk. The warmth of the dusk sunlight shone upon my face and arms, opposing the cold blowing air inside the van, sending goosebumps up and down my arms, and chills down my spine. Tranquility had arrived unexpectedly. As my feet fell and met the paved road outside, sand instantly collected between my sandal and I. Sand that had been so ignorantly misplaced. So uncomfortable, but I didn’t care. I ran as fast as my feet could carry, and I didn’t know why. I just felt that whatever I was looking for, just might be here. As the hard concrete stopped, God’s natural unstable earth began to support me. I stopped for a moment to take off my sandals. Every step kicked more of it into the air, like dust, as it calmly fell back down, gently into place. Soft, yet strong, the grains of sand together created a beautiful beige masterpiece. Then, next came the greatest part of all. My feet began to sink in the more soggy sand, waterlogged and drenched. As the free-flowing cerulean waves receded, I prepared for them to flow right back. The chilly water surged and flowed around my feet and toes, sending once again chill down my spine. Wind swiftly wrapped my body, like arms around my chest. I was finally free, free as the place where I stood. I was finally calm.

Never Say Never by Thane Lain

What's worse?

Losing the one you are with? Or never even getting a chance?

I say never getting a chance.

"What if?" has to be the worst question to ever dig it's little way into the human mind. Adam and Eve understand.

"'What if' we could have made it work?"..."what if I wouldn't have said that or acted that way?"...or the worst: "What if I could've been with them? Loved them. Laughed with them. Cried with them. Grown with them. Explored with them. Ran with them. Jumped. Fought. Hop-scotched. Hid......what if I could have grown old with them?"

It's like a parasite that never stops. It grows and grows and grows and grows, until it just about kills any hope you have left for anything more. Because nothing will ever match up to those dreams. those endless dreams.

Actually, isn't "What If?" in itself hope? 

Hope in the ideas of what could have been. Or even worse in what could still be. 

It's like "What If" on 'roids. The worse "what if". The "what if" that can still happen. 

Hope with the chance of hope. Something that still, maybe, someday can be...that is brutal. Pure neurological torture, at it's best.

The fact that the heart, just 18 inches away from the big guy upstairs (the brain, for slow readers), is no coincidence, and can just make things harder. The two actually work very closely together though, constantly contradicting the other, conflicting logic with emotion. Push and Pull.

You see, if you're with a special little someone for a good while, or even a little while I guess, and things go wrong, you know what went wrong. You saw it. I mean, YOU WERE THERE. In the mess you called a relationship. 

You know what you, or that other person, did or said that screwed up everything. And sure, dwelling on it can just about kill you. But, us, the more optimistic side of humanity, won't dwell on it like the pessimists, and will see those "screw-ups" as lessons, and things we know to fix the next time.

But what lesson do you learn in 'love never had'? 

There isn't one. Except what you NEVER DID or DIDN'T DO.

The only thing you get is an ache in the upper left section of your chest. An ache whose life-span can only be measured by the amount of hope you put into it.

Is hope always good?

No.

False hope is hope nonetheless, but a bad hope. A "hope-lie".

What about the hope people tell you shouldn't have because it is so unreasonably (remember that word!? because "reason" is from the brain)...crazy. 

It will never happen, some will say. AND, usually, this insane hope, as others will call it, is something you love. Something that drives you. Something, you just can't let you go of, no matter what you do. An obsession that draws the biggest emotions (SEE!!! There's the other one! "Emotion", which comes from the heart).....love. 

The greatest force in all the universe. The force that literally saves lives. That creates life.

Is that bad hope? Or is this crazy, undeniable, unfathomable in deepness, this love/hope hybrid,  just the definition of TRUE HOPE?

A drive that never dies. A hope that no words, or prejudice, or days, or years, or decades can kill. A faith. 

Faith is undeniable trust and irrefutable hope.

Faith will keep you alive. 

Without faith, we live a life without hope. And without hope, are we even living?

Wow did I get lost in all that. But, back to my love issues. 

It will work itself out, one way or another, even it's not the way I thought it would, or even wanted it to. 

And honestly, I think it'll work out the way I think it will. Because, love has to have faith, and I have faith. Faith that if I have patience in this idea. in this hope. in this love I have for this one...God won't fail me.

I mean, He never has before...why start now?