Essence

We get to places in our lives, destinations, where we think we've got everything. Sometimes it's a passion for someone you love or something you love to do that pushes you into believing that it's invincibly strong. Usually when we wind up in these spots of pure joy, we thank God, we do the right things, and we take it at face value. We get lost in the moment, and we feel like nothing can stop us. Instead of thanking God, and facing the joy with humility, some of us, like me, fail to respect the fragility of these things. We see them for what they are, appreciate them, and then have a stupid lapse in judgement that destroys (or does it's damnedest to destroy) everything that you stand for, that you understood about everything.

I can't say I'm a perfect person, nor would I ever want to. There's no such thing. But, in a very big way, I am one of the rare people who has found pure happiness. I have been blessed in ways few people could even begin to understand. I have found a spiritually charged love and passion that flows through me more deeply than I even knew I had the depths to behold. And when I first found it, I couldn't even express it in ways I could understand myself. It's so much bigger than me, than anything I knew about the Universe or God or anything.

Despite all of these things, despite the promise of riches eternally, I made some bad judgements that hurt me more than anyone else has ever hurt myself. I thought even though that this thing I had found was so amazing, so overwhelming, that, when tempted with something that was inexorably tied to my past, I faltered. The hardest part, for me, was even acknowledging it. After some very traumatic events in my life, I became an expert at mentally disconnecting myself from things. I can think about people who have meant more to me and are no longer in my life for whatever reason, people I loved, people I had all the hope in the future for, and now they're gone, and I can't shed a tear. I want to, and I can't.

But this is different. The compartmentalizing of this is impossible, because it was so big to begin with. It was so overwhelming, it was like water filling a water balloon that can't pop. It just slowly rips open and the water winds up consuming every aspect of your life. What people don't realize is that if you add something to that water, if you taint it, that tainted water now consumes your life, too. I'm learning this the hard way. I have a life, and it's consumed with tainted water that leaked from the water balloon of my soul which was overflowing with joy and elation.

Where I go from here is inconsequencial. If I'm lucky, I will be able to make it right, filter my water, make it a place of happiness absent of sorrow. But it is largely obvious to me that had I not tainted it in the first place, life would be peaches and cream. This is my warning. This is the essence of the moment. Don't take the things that mean the most to you for granted. Don't fail to acknowledge how much those things really mean to you.

People are loved. We have families and friends who would buy you dinner and feed you even if you couldn't care less. But what we don't have is passion, because people don't take the time to wait for it or earn it. I challenge you, the reader, to respect the passions in your life. They are strong, like spiders webs. They are simple. They are beautiful. They are home. But, they are only distructable by you as it's your passion. Have faith. Love. Don't be afraid.