Jesus christ, when is it going to come? I’ve literally been waiting for what seems like an eternity. Eyes bloodshot, feet trembling, hands shaking and my brain is so scrambled to the point where I might need my grandmother to put my thoughts back in order, she’s good at scrabble and crosswords so I figure she might be able to help. I need to fill my empty feeling soul. This happens daily, always at the same time. Its getting old. I mean really, why would God make anyone wait for something like this? Its on the brink of torture, I feel like I could literally strangle someone, maybe even myself! If I hear, “patience and tolerance” one more time, I’ll snap! Watching the clock, waiting, wishing, plotting how fast I’ll run.

And then it rang..

The lunch bell

Best sound for a hangry person like myself.

“This longing to commit a madness stays with us throughout our lives. Who has not, when standing with someone by an abyss or high up on a tower, had the sudden impulse to push the other over? And how is it that we hurt those we love although we know that remorse will follow? Our whole being is nothing but a fight against the dark forces within ourselves. To live is to war with trolls in heart and soul. To write is to sit in judgement on oneself.”

- Henrik Ibsen

When routine bites hard

and ambitions are low

And resentment rides high

but emotion won’t grow

And we’re changing our ways

taking different roads

What will tear us apart?

(One of the best bands ever)

Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons.

Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons; they are vexatious to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment, it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.

Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.

And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be. And whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

Max Ehrmann

I’ve been here before

why do I keep coming back?

I know it all too well

it’s home to me

The dark corners, empty halls

voices in my head

laughs and cries of despair

in the rooms next to me

horrifying dreams

despaired parents

disoriented thinking

suicidal thoughts

dead friends

decaying enamel

abandoned aspirations

a hostage of the demons

of my own making

i don’t know

maybe I’m just talking to myself

or maybe you understand

Yesterday was the hardest day I’ve had in a while

I wish I could hold it together and crack a smile

Up and down, left and right, goes my mind everyday

I need to calm it down, before I go insane

I love hard and hate harder

excuse me while I burn

Seasons change, friends fade

Love speaks, in different words

Wish I could crack a smile

through it all every day

We both know it’s not like that, peaks and valleys so they say

Old friend how I miss you

where’d you go?

Changed my life, plucking strings

At your summer home

I thought of Joshua Hicks when I wrote this. My first guitar teacher who changed my entire identity on a humid and sunny day in southern Indiana on the porch of his home. We we’re both struggling but helped each other get through it as much as we could until we split ways. He passed away of a heroin overdose in late 2020. Always in my

memory!

The capacity to be alone is the capacity to love. It may look paradoxical to you, but it's not. It is an existential truth: only those people who are capable of being alone are capable of love, of sharing, of going into the deepest core of another person--without possessing the other, without becoming dependent on the other, without reducing the other to a thing, and without becoming addicted to the other. They allow the other absolute freedom, because they know that if the other leaves, they will be as happy as they are now. Their happiness cannot be taken by the other, because it is not given by the other.

Osho Rajneesh

Funny how one single read can shift a whole life long constructed and reinforced idea one has on the word love. Grateful to have found this today.

Opening my heart to people has always been easy, Ive always loved to help people and see them smile, but at what cost? Sometimes, I don’t know when to close my heart, not everyone is as good as they portray themselves to be and there are moments where I have a hard time deciphering that. I’m naive at times, but I stay compassionate and loving but it has brought me more anguish than “love”. Still, I can’t seem to close it and that’s ok. Its easier to love than to carry around the bourdon of hate.

But there have been times, where the same person I thought I loved, the same person I cared for so much, just disappeared from my train of thought. From my whole existence in a blink of an eye. I had closed my heart to the thought of them and they became nothing. I felt peace knowing they were gone from my reality. I didn’t have to hate them or love them or miss them. They were just gone.

I asked for strength, and was given difficulties to make me stronger.

I asked for wisdom, and received problems to solve.

I asked for courage, and dangers appeared to overcome.

I finally asked for the best gift of all, love, I encountered troubled souls of broken human vessels to help heal.

I got everything I asked for.