A Book to You, My Wife

I just am not sure what it is but I feel totally uncomfortable. Maybe it is payback, but I hope that we are getting beyond the need for purgatory and more into the realm of Heaven. Let me explain, and maybe in the writing there will be some solution even without burdening you for it.

It is a fear that I have felt often in my life. That sinking feeling that I will be abandoned, left in the dark without a light, suffering, alone, lost. My heart actually begins to beat louder in such distress, as if I am on the edge of a tall cliff just before I dive into the unknown waters below. It is a fear that could bring me to tears if only I hadn’t faced it so many times before; they well up in me only to be suppressed by the anger that has kept me warm on so many cold nights. It is the lone wolf in me, the shadow of fear replaced by the radiant explosion of anger, the loneliness of dread replaced by the voices I have heard way too many times before.

It is the Genesis of the pattern of self-destructive behavior, the ego screaming for it’s binky, it’s blankie, it’s way. It now scares me, and added to the fear of being vulnerable is the fear of vulnerabilities outcome. I would never let it get this far without doing something stupid, something irrevocably dangerous and harmful. This time, I am identifying it, trying to make it disappear in the light of awareness and in this effort I am discovering the root of its existence, the cause of its awakening, the meaning of its reality. Its days are numbered.

But it’s here right now my love, talking to me, telling me that I am going to lose, telling me that it will be more painful to lose if effort is expended, forcing me to hear it while pretending it doesn’t need to be heard. In turn, I cry inside like a baby, begging it to leave me alone, begging it to go back to sleep while pretending I can’t hear it. It is the saboteur of our life together facing me yet again, but this time I feel as if I have someone I can rely on to face it with me, and in that battle I feel it only right that you know what you are facing. You are facing the worst of me in love.

I have never been more in love with another human being more than I am in love with you. Such dependence does not shine normally in my heart. I learned at a very early age that to love is to be vulnerable. I used to call such vulnerability a “weakness”, one that I simply would not have in me. I would sabotage every possibility of such weakness, ensuring that I was alone just long enough to find someone else to practice such strength on. I could never let anyone in on this feeling for to do so was to increase the vulnerability, to ensure the weakness. One could not simply be strong and expose a weakness! No, it was simpler to get such “conquests” to hate me in my strength than to love me in my weakness.

It is obvious to me now that I have never really loved until Megan was born. I never really felt the need to be loved, in fact a part of me relished such loneliness. That changed when I met you. Your tenderness touched a part of me still in infancy, your smile warmed a part of me still left frozen. Your touch made me tingle, my voice made my heart race, your eyes just blew me away like salt in a tornado. This was the very first time I met you, imagine that. A man-boy who refused to love or be loved in such despair after one moment with a soul so much a part of him he couldn’t not get her from his mind. It wasn’t just about your outward appearance, that attraction would come soon enough, it was some thing about you that words cannot describe, the part of you that is me, the Oneness we shared even before our first kiss.

It ended life as I knew it my love. It ended me as I knew me. It took time, just as an infant takes time to grow into puberty, it took time to finally see what it was that was happening. Every time we would meet or work together my mind could not get past the physical manifestation of this new feeling. My heart would speed up, my mind would race, my palms would get sweaty. I would get lost in your eyes for what seemed like hours. I needed to be near you, not in you, but near you. Again the “in” part would come later.

Destiny worked to my advantage. Things fell into place. The miracle of existence became the miracle of fate. I could smile again it seemed…or could I?

I have told you about the first time I noticed you sexually. I can still see you sitting there and the slight movement in my pants as I got a glimpse of the frog. I remember looking at your back, your hair, your arms, your skin. Your lips, your mouth, those rings on your fingers…I am beginning to feel that movement again…where are you when I need you?

Anyway, the turmoil started in me the very first date we went on, right about that time you made the comment about the man crossing the parking lot. The voice began, “what are you doing” was, I believe, the very first question out of my mind. You were just so special to me in my soul and so damn attractive to the rest of me that there was no way in hell this relationship was going to work out. I overlooked it, but it ate at me for weeks. I began to see threats all around me the more I fell in love with you. I fell in love with you during our first introduction, I fell complete after that first date. I was gone the first time our lips touched, I was completely lost as I touched your body. I was, for the first time in my life, vulnerable.

And that created the threats I mentioned. I caused the monster to roar loudly in my mind. I saw your friendliness as a threat – you were flirting in my mind’s eye. I saw your not ending the relationship with Shawn as a threat – were you leading us on to choose between us? Were you fucking him behind my back or vice versa? I was a mess baby, not because of reality, but because of what my mind was telling me reality was. That thing with your fake “cousin” – proof that my mind was right and my soul was wrong. The arguments we had were not really me with you, they were me with me. It was my mind sabotaging what my heart longed for. The battle inside of me was a tremendous war, it tired me beyond fatigue and caused me to morph beyond all identity. You didn’t answer your phone? You were lying. You didn’t tell me where you were? You were cheating. You weren’t with me? You were with someone else. Man, I can still remember those days and I can still feel the utter fatigue of the struggle within me, not to mention the additional struggle it was causing with you.

Yet you stayed and fought me through it. I never really did address the cause, we just fought and forgave (or not) and forgot (or not) and moved on (or not). The beast was still there, only feeling a bit more dominant for the fight. Still, having sex with you was the highlight of my life. I could live for a sexual encounter with you. I still remember vividly some of the great sex you gave me. It’s mind-blowing to me even today. God to get back to that would be completeness in life. Not only are you greatness, you completely take my soul from me when we are intimate. And now to the beginnings of fear I have right now.

No, this is not another “I need wild sex” prose, it is rather a voice in my head speaking to the subject. I can almost hear you telling me someday that this is not mutual. Whether it is your hands in action as mine try to be, or the fact you never make me feel desired or even satisfactory in this aspect of our life together, there is something that tells me that someday in your coldness you will finally tell me that you simply are not satisfied in this way, that you needed more, that I was just not “it” for you. This voice is loud, and I know where it comes from.

I am opening myself up a bit, wanting to show you love and affection in the way I feel it when the wall is down and the door open (this is a cliché fest, I know). I scares me in a big way, as if you will use this vulnerability against me. It keeps me from being fully dependent on you or the relationship. You know how you are scared to do to bed alone after watching a scary movie? That is how I feel emotionally, like the darkened hallway I am about to enter is wrought with threats and doom is certain. It freezes me, causes me to swing at enemies not really there…always with the voices going “or are they there?” I want so desperately to believe they are imaginary, unreal tokens of emotional immaturity even as I swing in air almost waiting to hear the “thump” of weapon meeting reality, the threat realized.

So the fear, what I call the “beast”, doesn’t dwell in the darkened hallway, but rather in that part of me that fights the demons who reside there. Fear prompts feats of great strength and achievement, but in my case it can do just the opposite (and usually does). I am not talking physically, but rather mentally. Fear certainly propels my body into better than average action because I create an anger out of it. What fear does to me mentally is a whole different story. It is almost like I regress into infancy, my mind works to subvert my soul, instilling in me that need to act out before acted upon. It is what drove my fuck-ups in the past with you…the need to feel in control dominated my common sense and soul. If I could create in me the knowledge that I was desired by someone other than the threat, then I was safe. You could steamroll me and I would survive because I was still desired. Stupid shit, I know, but when you walk in unconsciousness all things are possible even stupid things.

Today I feel that fear. I loved last night, sitting on the sofa with you, just feeling you on me. It was emotionally fulfilling to me. I felt great inside. I had you half naked, I could feel your skin, your tits, see you in your beauty as my wife, my life. I could feel the blood rushing to my groin, the racing of my heart, the absolute beauty of love that I had each moment we shared. Beauty is defined as those moments to me babe, no other definition is needed.

Yet in it all was the nagging question created by the beast, “why doesn’t she want me?” You know, no playfulness, no teasing, no seduction. In fact, I tried to rub her, but you hate when I touch you there. I must say you are the first person I have ever known who hates to be touched there. It starts me wondering if you don’t want to be touched there, or if you just don’t want to be touched there by me. I am sure you can see where the question would come from. I am sure if you went to rub my dick and I stopped you, telling you “I don’t like when you rub it” you would question yourself.

I really didn’t care to watch TV to be honest, but I was not giving up that moment because the TV was on. I loved every moment of it, and really only fantasized about you “taking” me once (in this fantasy, you actually just went down on me as we sat there and then took over from there). Other than that one moment, I was just in the moment, loving it all and wishing it didn’t have to end. Other than that one moment it wasn’t sexual, it was love purely without the physical – which made it a bit easier to let you sleep (although not entirely easy).

I am walking in fear today for sure. No, not the kind of “I am an idiot and need to be stupid” fear, just fear. I see threats, everything from you needing to go out more with your friends to who you are walking with on Saturday to your need to look so freaking hot as to kill me each moment I am not inside of you. I see you being pulled from me when I will need you the most. I see some pain, a fear of losing you, a fear of needing you in a way I can’t console. I fear a separation in us that only widens, a gap to large to cross or close. And yes, it scares me…I have much more to lose than you do it seems.

Awareness is the difference this time. I feel it…I can see it almost as an observer, but not quite. I can observe it but I can still feel it, meaning I am not separate from it yet. I long to be, not as a dispassionate observer, but a passionate one. I long to be soothed by you in understanding me and where I am at any given moment. Things like this will only bring us closer I hope, in a way that begs us both to be dependent on one another for needs such as this. It is new territory (for me), unexplored ground from which these feet will carry me. Are you my guide? Are you the outstretched hand that beckons me further when there is nothing left inside? Are you truly that which guides me? I long for the answer, and will give you all that I am in the quest. You remain my love, my soul mate, my reason for searching.

I love you…

T

Time To Say Goodbye My Friend

It's time to say goodbye my friend,
For time has said goodbye to you,
As it will to each of us one day.

It's time to say goodbye my friend,
Allow one last embrace before we part,
Such sadness knows no delay.

You shall now return to the Sea,
Please take a piece of me,
It's time to say goodbye my friend.

It's time to say goodbye my friend,
I wish I told you more before you left,
If I would have only known.

It's time to say goodbye my friend,
I wish I held you more before you left,
I feel so alone.

Someday I shall follow you,
We'll be together again in time,
But for now, well for now,
It's just time
To say
Goodbye...
My friend.

But a Teaspoon of the Sea

To be something - an expression of self,
That does not define the self,
But expresses the self as it is as that moment,
Is the purpose of life eternal.

Such a need is found in this Being,
A desire to express the love of this moment,
As a service to others as a service to self,
A need to be the change I wish to see.

Allow me to be such a vessel,
Calmly living this moment as it seeks to be lived,
Devoting all of self to it,
Understanding its Divine intention.

Allow me to seek the beauty in this moment,
and not to seek the charity of the next,
Find in me the eternity of Now,
In the outstretched hand that accepts its fate.

Allow me to seek such a place,
Where I am nothing more than what "I am".
I am but a teaspoon of the sea,
And to that sea I shall return.

Allow me a voice in such throes of inspiration,
To not think but live in the moment,
Find in me such freedom in cause,
That carries this tune in a such blind ecstasy.

If I but live in this moment,
I have lived nonetheless,
I have lived an eternal lifetime forever found,
In those things that don't exist at all.

For I am but a Teaspoon of the Sea,
And in this spoon I am myself,
A separate spoon are we all?
The Sea is but the place we return when the spoon is no more.

Speechless

Such words from your speechless mouth do form,
Enough light to keep this planet warm,
In meaning found from thoughts not taken,
Is to find a sleeping soul awakened.

I can feel your tears shed in the night,
and can feel your breath come day light,
To lay awake it only seems,
I must stay asleep to dream such dreams.

You whisper softly - no words at all,
In slumber's midst I hear your call,
The song of spirit from whence it came,
Are speechless songs not at all the same.

Remember all of time my friend,
Shall never hear this the music end,
And in time shall see such spirit free,
When I find the better, speechless me.

My Friend, My Gift

To see such beauty as you my friend,
Is to open a heart full of light to the world,
And to have such memories as I have in you,
Is to hold in delight what words cannot say.
To be in such a way my friend,
Is to know the meaning of good fortune,
As to have called you "my friend" at all,
Is to know the goodness of what life can offer.

I have but been lucky to hold you close,
Both in my heart and in my arms,
To comfort you in all discomfort,
To share in your unbridled joy.
To see you in such a pure light as to see nothing else.
In this there was no chore or labor at all,
It simply was and is nothing short of wondrous,
A miracle of memory I shall not easily surrender.

To see you now my friend,
After the years have passed and our youth has set us free,
I take joy in knowing you, and in seeing who you are.
I am left in sorrow for not being there all these years,
To comfort you in your discomfort,
And to share in your unbridled joy.
For to see you as I see you now is to have a cherished gift,
One I shall cherish for all the days of my life.

My Cross to Bear

Such lovely willow blossom bare,
To thee my sweet the essence there,
Such nectar true to me decide
Whether stuck in truth or truth denied.

Fondled free to a withered home,
Absent in my Judgment's tome,
In longing's grasp so tried and true,
I am longing to be tried by you.

To be the cause of endless pain,
Is to find a means to be insane,
To defeat in me such ego's charms
I consciously outstretch my arms.

Effortless to spike me there,
We all have such a cross to bear,
To fall not once, not twice but three,
Is to find such strength to carry me.

I shall always wear this suffered ring,
And bear the scar of suffering,
In time the Crown has seemed to fade,
The mark of ego thus betrayed.

So I stretch my arms to take the wood,
I'd take the nails if I only could,
To deny this place and deny me there,
Is to deny I have this cross to bear.

An ode to my wife.

Today I wish to pay homage to my wife. No, not out of some silly guilt-ridden need for something, or some quest to have her "owe" me, or even some sly plan to have her "pay out" in her own special way for my thoughts. I just wish to offer some insight as to the lucky man I am, and the impact one human being can have on another.

First, let me say that words to fully describe my feelings are impossible. True enough, my Creator has blessed me with enough gab to fill a set of encyclopedias, but in that gift I understand just how poorly a job words are at describing true and raw emotion. Perhaps it is because words are mere things, and such emotion goes so far beyond any thing in this universe as to make words so completely useless in their existence. Perhaps it is why we can best communicate such emotion without words, without a need for such things.

Also, I don't post this publicly for any "reward", except in the desire that my wife never forgets who she is in my life, and in hoping that others read this and perhaps hold their partners a bit tighter, and never take them for granted. Sometimes life gets in our way, and it never hurts to remember the power of love and what that power is capable of.

And sometimes we as humans being in this world just need to know the impact we have on others.

I view myself as one of the luckiest people alive. I have lived through hell, the kind created both by others and by my own ignorance. I have been at the bottom and seen the top. But most of all, what I value most about this experience we call "life" has been the love that has driven me beyond what I believed were my own limitations. It is such passion, such emotions, that drives the me that is in form beyond what the me that is not believes it can go. It is, frankly, not just love that makes the world go round, but is what makes the world.

I recently had the distinct pleasure to sit next to an elderly lady on a plane ride to Pittsburgh. She was old in body, but her mind and mannerisms were of youth. She was a football fan, a Steelers fan, and we went back and forth about the Steelers and the Eagles, the Steagles, and I informed her how lucky she was that it was not my team who faced hers at the Super Bowl. She informed me with similar passion that she had just been to a parade that was, of course, not in my town. It was very fun, and made the trip very quick. She told me she was widowed several years ago, and that her husband got her into football and she fell in love with it decades ago. It really made me pause to reflect.

I looked into her eyes as she spoke of going to games with her husband and saw her memory fade back to those years. I could feel the love in her description of those times, and understood that it wasn't so much the passion for the Steelers that she enjoyed, but the memory of the passion she shared with her husband that drove her. I wondered without asking if she thought about her husband while at the parade, if she thought about him during the game, and of course I knew the answer. It was simple because I could relate.

While I looked into her eyes as she spoke, I saw my wife's own eyes looking back at me. I wondered if my wife shared a similar passion of me. As I looked at this woman's hands, knarled by time and condition, I wondered what time had in store for my wife and me. Would my wife's hands reach for me through time and space? Would her eyes search for me through the distance that time would create? Would I still hold a place in her heart after years had gone by, after time had taken its toll?

I realized I simply could not answer those questions. Yet, while catching a shuttle from the airport to the hotel, I took a glimpse into my own heart to seek things as they are to me. Regardless of what the erosion of time would do to that which is my life, our life, I could certainly understand in my own being what my wife, my partner in life, meant to me.

And in those 25 minutes and in the day since I unlocked my soul and just allowed words to form. This is as mighty of a description as my limited abilities will allow, and is a simple gift I offer - a part of me to a part of you.

She is simply the hand I reach for in the night. She is simply the name I call when all words fail me. She is simply the dreams that wake me in the night. When all else becomes dust I know that I can turn and she will be there, smiling and arms outstretched. When I am bloodied and battered she will tend to my wounds. When I am vicious and mean she will be the music that comforts me. When I am loving and kind she will be the mirror that reflects all that I do. Her skin will soften my own, her words will make mine understandable, her dreams will inspire me to greatness. She is my essence, my soul, the light which protects and guides me when the darkness threatens.

These are but words, they don't scratch the surface of what this mere man feels when I am with her. My skin tenses to her touch, my eyes glisten with her art, my soul expands in her very presence. In my very human way, I am ignorant of these things in the noise of life. As all things shutter around me I forget the tear that forms when she exposes her soul to me. When the noise is loud I can no longer hear the music in her voice, I can no longer feel the tenderness of her touch, I can't see the light of her way. I become more human without her, more insatiable to the ways of life then satiated in the ways of love. I become a nothing, a thing of skin and bones and tissue and flesh, all of that that makes me more human than being.

It is then that I realize that God did not make woman for man, but rather God made man of woman. God did not make woman for the companionship of man, God made woman to complete man, to become his essence, to guide him in the darkness, to inspire him to become more. Woman, in her beautiful essence could survive easily without man, but man would be doomed without woman in his soul.

In this there are no words, nor deeds, nor gifts, nor discipline of action that could give my wife what she gives to me. This day I let her know that she is in every thought I have, she is the essence of every still moment in my life. She is the wind that powers me, and the only hand I seek to have in mine. She is the only thing I will search for even as time and condition have taken their toll on this flesh and bone and tissue and skin. My being will always search for her in the good night, my soul will always cry out for her in the noise of life, and it is those things of being that will cause those little bumps on my skin at her touch, will cause that tear to form at the view of her soul, and will cause the hairs on my neck to stand at the thought of her kiss.

I love you my wife, I love you with all of my heart and being. Neither time nor space nor circumstance of form can change these things. They are, as intended, pure and selfless. When such conditions of existence cloud our eyes and deafen our minds let's not forget the essence of what we are, of what destiny seeks to prove in our togetherness, of what love seeks to prove in the experience we share. We have what is priceless, we are wealthy beyond all comprehension not just in the love we have but in the awareness of it. In that manner I offer you my life and all that I am in simple understanding of what it all means beyond the flesh.

Finally, isn't it wonderful what one seemingly meaningless and anonymous moment in time can create? I often wonder how many of those meaningless and anonymous but priceless moments of time we squander in the noise of existence. I often ask myself, how simple would life be if we only had 4 seconds to live? How would we treat those 4 seconds? That, however, is another story...

"Please don't expand..."

Sorry, but you know that I am just not that good at taking orders. Particularly ones I never could obey in the first place. I did hesitate sending this to you, strictly because you seem to think my writing is a ploy to gain favor, attention or some other bullshit. I write because it is the most effective way for me to share my feelings and emotions, I do not write for the approval or the acceptance of anyone else. It is my way of communicating in the best way possible, and you can take it or leave it as such.

And now to the dreaded expansion...

The strong emotional ties summed up in that song matter. Yesterday, I was meditating to music and that song simply stirred up so many emotions that it seemed perfect in describing the feelings I was having at that moment. I am not sure that I was feeling what the song meant to Gordon Lightfoot, but they became something all their own. It is that I wish to expand on (despite your desire not to hear me out, please try).

I feel like a ghost,as if I am non-existent in the real world because I am bound at the ankles by the chains of the past. I am completely imprisoned by a lack of love, a lack of desire, and a lack of "now". I feel as if I have lost you, that we are just existing in this - you in the real world and me as a "ghost in a wishing well", frantically waving my hands to someone who can't see them, who simply wishes to move on beyond me.

You must feel as if you deserve such thoughts, as if I have earned this distinction, as if you simply need not care whether I live or die, smile or cry, reach out or withdraw. I feel as if you see me as no longer your lover, I am your husband, bound to you by a signature and children with little else between us and no hope of their ever being again. I am a "hero" not prepared for the part, who has failed as they often do, who cannot regain the stature or place in your heart necessary to continue the effort for any other reason than continued growth and hope for a better future.

In that essence you have played the movie queen, whose role it was to save me, set me free, make me better regardless of the outcome. In the movies we walk away unscathed, a repentant soul and the woman who unselfishly stood by him to see him become a better man. Somewhere along the line the film got stuck and the light burned through, leaving us with only the sound of the broken film slapping against the projector. It's the reality of life, that where there are emotions and feelings involved there cannot be such easy repentance, if there is any at all. We must suffer the indignities of our actions regardless of where we are as a result of them. Those we hurt do not grow with us, they do not walk the same path as we do, they are in essence frozen in time while we race on by. You see me as I am at the starting line, even as I pass the half way point of the race.

And where we were before the race turned sour, well its the feeling you can't get back. That look of love in your eyes when you used to look at me. The raw power of lust, the indignant demands for more - all gone in the winds of change that seems to have powered us in much different directions.

I often wonder if I were to die how much you would care. In watching that movie last night, I understood my place in this world with you. I believe there would be more tears of happiness than there would be of sadness in you. You would be free, insurance money to pay things off, the word "widowed" rather than "divorced", and you could move on with you life in the time appropriated. You would not have to share with the world how your marriage failed, but rather how your husband died. You could be free all the way around, with only bad memories of me to keep us distant, for otherwise I would be "gone" in just a matter of moments to you. You could find a fairy-tale romance to keep you warm at night, the sound of a love song playing during the closing credits, the evil bastard gone and the knight in shining armor there to replace him.

No, I don't wish to die...I just wonder what effect that time of my existence would have on those I care about the most. And no, I don't blame YOU for how you feel about ME.

As for me, the feeling will never leave. I will always want you sexually, I will always love you deeply in my heart and soul. I will always want to reach for you in the night, and i will always wish the better part of me didn't come at the expense of the better part of you. I do wish I was there more, in your heart, in your soul, a part of every fabric of your being, that I was the drink you thirsted for, the bread you hungered for, and the air you wished to breathe. Ah, the wishing well this ghost will reside in...

Finally, I wish to share my experiences and mistakes with the world, perhaps it is my calling V. No, I don't wish to do so in a way that harms you or my family, but I do wish to see if such an understanding can help someone. Maybe it's why i have lived the life I have lived, and why I have been given this gift. Please don't take my efforts in this regard as anything, you judge me way too harshly. I don't see attention V, if I did it would certainly not be the kind that points out my weakness. That is NOT the attention I would seek to have. Rather, Cliff had it right, I write these thinks to get me aware (although he said "think", I hardly wish to think about it), and to share that awareness with others. I seek no reward from it, nor do I seek any attention - in this you are wrong.

I think, perhaps, we need to know where we are and were we are heading. As I mentioned before, if there is any hope we need to focus on it. If there isn't, we need not focus at all.

If You Could Read My Mind Love

I know this song bores you stiff, but I can't find a better way of saying how I feel, except that I am not the one who can't get the feeling back. Just please suffer and listen to it for me.

If you could read my mind love
What a tale my thoughts could tell
Just like an old time movie
'Bout a ghost from a wishin' well
In a castle dark or a fortress strong
With chains upon my feet
You know that ghost is me
And I will never be set free
As long as I'm a ghost that you can't see
If I could read your mind love
What a tale your thoughts could tell
Just like a paperback novel
The kind that drugstores sell
When you reach the part where the heartaches come
The hero would be me
But heroes often fail
And you won't read that book again
Because the ending's just too hard to take

I'd walk away like a movie star
Who gets burned in a three way script
Enter number two
A movie queen to play the scene
Of bringing all the good things out in me
But for now love, let's be real
* I never thought I could ACT this way *
And I've got to say that I just don't get it
I don't know where we went wrong
But the feelin's gone
And I just can't get it back

If you could read my mind love
What a tale my thoughts could tell
Just like an old time movie
'Bout a ghost from a wishin' well
In a castle dark or a fortress strong
With chains upon my feet
But stories always end
And if you read between the lines
You'll know that I'm just tryin' to understand
The feelin's that you lack
I never thought I could feel this way
And I've got to say that I just don't get it
I don't know where we went wrong
But the feelin's gone
And I just can't get it back

Attachment to past...

This will be long, so take your Ridalin or Aderol NOW! You have had your warning!!

During a recent life challenge, I faced the rather difficult task of understanding the relationship we share with our past, and was left clearly dominated by a need to become aware of how the path behind us can influence the path ahead of us. I would like to share some of the awareness discovered.

It caused me to ask the question: "does beating oneself up over the past continue the attachment to it?". It was a rhetorical question at first, but seemed born of the recent struggle and the awareness that was created by it. I love struggle and suffering, it truly is the best teacher.

First, let me share with you my understanding of thought. Most of us cling to thought as the mechanism by which we grow, understand, live, make decisions, and basically function. I work to take thought in a much different way (yes, even struggle to reach this destination), and use my life experiences to basically formulate an awareness of thought...and understanding of it that shapes how I approach it, use it and, ultimately, discard it.

Thought, in my understanding, is the noise of the mind. It creates a perception of reality that can enhance the ego's control of that reality. I clouds sound decision making, it magnifies ego, it stands in the way of progress. It simply keeps us from our selves, and from fully enjoying our existence. I certainly can get more into thought and ego if asked, but I have no need to challenge conventional thought in this post, but rather offer this as a basis for explaining the difference in thought and awareness as it relates to my understanding. A mouth full to say the least, some things of spirit just are not easily described with things of form. I guess one way to simply put it is that thought is the explanation of understanding, awareness is the creation of it without thought.

So, in the process of understanding attachment to past and how it controls our present, I needed to have an awareness of the circumstance at hand. This awareness requires an honesty for which thought cannot face. It takes seeing your self in a way that egoic thought will not allow, it takes tears, it takes sweat, and ultimately it takes a devotion to spirit that eliminates the presence of ego. It takes quiet, it takes stillness, it takes the complete absence of thought.

And now the painful part, an honesty for which there is no return. Things on here may be changed to protect others, but ultimately nothing will be changed to protect me, the person or the ego. So, here goes.

I have a propensity to not only have trust issues, but to cause them. I simply make bad decisions or do things that just aren't worthy of trust. My ego takes over, thinks, and then acts in accordance with its perception of reality. Then it changes things to make that perception fit, regardless of how honest or truthful that perception is. My self, that part of me left when ego is stripped away, suffers at the hands of this. The ego jumps for joy while the self cries bitter tears. It is the paradox of a person that is the essence of "beating oneself up", a continual battle between that which is all about form, pleasure and materialism and the self which wants no part of it.

In short, I am a liar...in ego that is simply what I am. This difficult awareness comes at a price but is worth the investment. The only way to end an ego is to shine light on it, and awareness is that light. Ego is a darkness that cannot survive even the slightest beam of light. You just need be willing to turn the light on, which is really the most difficult part.

Once I could see that I am a liar in ego, awareness began to delve into the aspects of this darkness. Now, keep in mind that awareness is not thinking, it is the absence of thought, so one does not pass judgment on what is happening at this moment. Awareness took me back to the pain of my youth, the need to be something so different in order to find the acceptance of others. Awareness shed light on seeing just how untrustworthy my parents were, how lies got them through life. I could see my ego creating the persona that would get me through the day. I could see that need to dominate my surroundings, whether cheating on a girlfriend to break any attachment to emotion, or having sex with a random woman in order to feel accepted, or hurting someone I loved very much because I just could not trust them, the things my ego did while in control simply sickened my self.

Worst of all, there were a handful of people who I honestly loved, people who I counted as those who I would die for if able. I realized that I was completely unable to share this because of my immature attachment to ego. In fact, I turned my back on these people rather than take them in. I feared this feeling, I feared its ownership of the "me" I knew. This "way" began when I was a young child and continued up to the day my wife tearfully told me that this "way" was killing her. At that moment, she turned a light on in me, made me become painfully aware of the "me" that needed to be exposed. At that moment, my self took over for a change, and I understood that my self needed to expose these things that were not only hurting her, but others I love, and yes, even me. The conflict had turned a corner.

That's not to say it was over, man it is far from over even though this event took place years ago. My ego continues to lash out seeking its survival. This takes me to the recent life challenge. It simply was about the past, and how it effects the present. I began questioning whether I wanted to live in the past anymore, whether I wanted to have it control my life. I began to wonder if the "me" people got to know and expect was controlling the "me" I am at this moment. It is a conflict to say the least, it is a nasty battle between now and then, self and ego, light and darkness. But it is a necessary one.

And now to the understanding I have of the initial question. Let me first say that there is no right or wrong answer because ultimately the answer will depend upon where you are at this very moment. If am two blocks behind you in the journey of life, there is simply no way I can see the beauty you see, and you simply cannot see what I am seeing at that moment. But in this understanding is the understanding of the present, this very moment, and the fact that this moment is the purpose of being.

At this moment, I release the past the best I can. I must have no attachment to it, for it is an egoic perception of reality. Perception is a tricky thing, and I often liken it to the circumstance of the moment. To someone who is full and healthy, eating a Big Mac may seem grotesque...but give that same person a circumstance of starvation and they would eat that Big Mac off the dirty sidewalk. It's the moment that is purpose, it is the moment that matters, and it is the moment for which we need to exist.

With this understanding, I become aware of reactions (ego) that are based on the past. They are harmful even if they appear to be good. In this moment there is no past, there is no need to relive it, there is no need to demand its attention or even offer it attention. The past ruins the present by its very existence, and the only way to firmly be in this moment is to relinquish the hold the past has on it.

No, there are no exceptions. And no, this is not to say that lessons learned in the past are not to be used this moment. They just must not own the moment. As a child learns that fire is painful, we now later due to this past experience not to stick our hand in the fire, but we do not use this painful experience to not enjoy a fire's warmth. Yes, there is a difference, and it is up to you and where you are at this moment to figure out where that difference is.

I heard a story once that pretty much sums it up. If you have abused a dog as a puppy, and see it 10 years later it may bite you, but it certainly hasn't thought about it for each of those 10 years. And it probably won't think about it again once you leave the room to get your stitches. The dog has learned from the past, but it certainly does not live in it or for it. And I believe the dog will not be beating itself up for biting the abuser after the event is over.

We must learn from the dog...that this moment is not about the last one, it is about this one. It is the only one we are guaranteed, it is eternity. Enjoy it, allow it to be, and simply embrace all that it offers. Love those you love, open up, and just be. Such freedom is beautiful, and the stillness is deafening. No, it's not easy, but if you love it is a must.

Peace

Time With

If today is but a reflection of time
Spent longing and searching for more,
Would you grasp me and hold me forever
As if you had never known me before?

If I say that pain lasts forever,
That memories are wishes come true,
Would you still hold onto the day that ended the way
That this time with me was cherished by you?

If fate turned today to forever,
With tomorrow an end that we knew
Would you choose to be eternally grateful
If I spent this forever with you?

There just doesn't seem to be enough time
To change the things that I have ruined
Time with.
There just aren't enough ways to say enough times
Or do enough things to end the pain I've spent
Time with.

If memories mold us forever
If the footprints behind choose the path up ahead
What hope do we have in the walking
Perhaps the living are already dead?

We ignore all the love left in passing
Instead it's the pain that we choose,
Yesterday becomes our eternal today
Such comfort where nothing gets soothed.

I just hope today is enough time to know
Enough time to grow beyond the things we kill
Time with
It's just long enough I hope I'll know
How to show my love with those that I spend
Time with.

A night futile

We left, me having been touched more by your friend in one night than I have by you in a year...you a bit tipsy off of beer and noise...me a bit uncomfortable with the outward show of whatever it was that got my head rubbed, my chest caressed, my back touched in a way I am only comfortable with you doing...even if you never feels so inclined. I chalk it up to being thirsty in a desert with only a stranger to give you a glass of water while your lover holds a barrel of the stuff. Maybe that is why I was so uncomfortable with it...I need it, I love it, I want more of it, just not from someone other than you.

We stay up late to watch a cover band, and it leaves me to wonder if this late hour would ever be realized in the quest for sanctification. Would this late hour ever be met in the raw sexual acts of a you and me rather than in the meaningless acts of watching nobodies sing a song we might like. I wonder what the pecking order is for "Things that Will Keep Veronica Up Late" and where our sexual lives fall on that list...if they have even made the list. I wonder why, and whether the bullshit excuses of the past will be called upon to continue the charade. I just don't believe they are the reasons anymore.

Slow-forward to leaving. Exhaustion as set in everywhere but the dance floor. "Let's go dance" would certainly promote much more energy than "let's go fuck", well that is if I could seem to do either this night. Still, I have to marvel in the energy you have to get this motion accomplished, and the energy I am spending on marveling in your seeming lack of fatigue on the dance floor turns to anger at the knowledge that as soon as we leave this place you will be too tired to move. So, is there something about me that makes you so tired? Or is this just the way it is?

Slow walk through a cold early morning to a cold car for a cold ride home. The heater in the car works, it warms the cabin for sure, but the space between us might as well be outside. I wonder, is the first driving blow job coming? Will she pick a dark spot somewhere and say "Let's park there"? Will she surprise me in some way as to say she got what I was saying in the earlier conversation that night? The rules suck. I respect what you don't want to do, but can we please make hay with the shit you are fine with? Your friend tugging at your shirt to get a glimpse of your tits sat fine with you, but it would seem that that action would have violated Section 3, Article 8, Paragraph 2 of the Rule Book. Or at the very least violated some portion of it somewhere. Not this night, with this friend, and I wonder what has given this friend a pass at caressing your husband and trying to get your tits to show.

Could it be acceptance? Could it be you accept her for who she is and still find a way to consider her special? I will need to give this more thought, and it isn't at the top of my priority list.

Well, we made it home without incident. Goodie! We make it to bed, no spontaneous blow job, no indication that me or my dick were anywhere in the consciousness of the only person I wish it to be in...no indication whatsoever that sexuality or even the needs of your husband have a concern. Certainly not in comparison to watching Depeche Mode cover music...now that is worth waiting up for.

I wake up this morning...bored and antsy and angry and frustrated. I hate waking up this way, but I am kind of getting use to it. I guess part of married life does mean that your sexuality falls behind Desperate Housewives on the priority list. That half-joke must be a half-truth. I wonder if I am wasting my final part of my prime years missing a third of what life is supposed to be. I went from being a fairly confident sexual being to a man sure I can't satisfy and do everything wrong. My skin is too harsh, my actions too abrupt, I go up instead of down, I have to work through a plethora of annoyed looks, a wall of long fingers, and set routine and set regiment of stuff. I have to keep in mind the year or so it has been since I have felt I have pleased my wife.

And I am getting sick of the baggage.

I will say that I am only venting here. If you want to know that only thing today that makes me pissy and bitchy there you have it. I can find peace everywhere else in my life, and yet the one place I need depend on someone else for it I find failure. Is the lesson to be learning here that I should not be dependent on anyone else? Is the lesson here that, to borrow some Rolling Stone lyrics, "you can't always get what you want"?

I guess I will learn what this lesson is sooner or later. But for now allow me to vent, to tell you how dreadfully unhappy I am with this part of my life. Now before you get all defensive and attack, I am not interested in your reasons, excuses or need to show me how it is all my fault. I don't care, I just care to get out the anger and frustration without it causing more in me. This is my proverbial beating a tire with a sledge, or more like beating a dead horse. This is nothing new, so I guess this is how life will be. I can now go back to thinking about me in my well-advanced years shaking my head at the waste of this time in my life. It makes me chuckle, if even just a little bit under my breath.

And I will await yet another futile night.