Come What May

I feel like I write a lot about fear.  How can I avoid it?  Fear invades every aspect of our lives and can be overwhelming when not faced head on.  When one wall breaks, fear oozes in the cracks and begins to take over.  Fighting it is damn tiring sometimes.  How do you keep up when your heart feels like it will bear no more?

The fear I am talking about now is the fear of the possible unknown.  Anything is possible and it is possible to be afraid of all of it.  The things we tend to fear the most are the things that will cause us the most pain.  I have little fear of heights, though a fall could break every bone in my body if it didn't kill me.  The most pervasive fear for me is the fear of a broken heart, though I doubt that will kill me.  I am always willing to climb a tree, lean over the edge of a building to see the street, go rock climbing or skydiving, and their is little hesitation.  The thrill is wonderful and the adrenaline is almost addictive.
I love in much the same way.
I will climb the mountain with as much enthusiasm as I can muster.  When I get to the top, however, I hesitate.  One unstable foothold and I am backsliding out as quickly as I can.  My heart seems more fragile than my bones.
When my trust is broken, my heart breaks too.  I feel the pain in my chest and it permeates every part of my body.  When I want to trust, there I am, staring at the rock face again willing myself to climb.  But each time I take that handhold to begin climbing the desire is weaker and the fear is greater.

Unlike my bones, my heart has been broken in more places than I can count.  I keep moving and keep loving and the heart keeps breaking.  My fear is rooted in the past.  The roots are deep and they are strong. 
I love the woman I am with, but my trust has been tested a few too many times.  I don't know how much more I have to give before I turn away and find something else.  I don't want to do this, but what can a person do.  We are tested time and again and it can often make us stronger, but, I wonder, how many times before it isn't worth it any more?  Anxiety bleeds into my thoughts, now.

What I do know is the fertile soil for an invasive plant.  What I don't know is the water that feeds it.  Its flower is fear.

And so I am afraid once again.  It is a struggle, but I believe that it is worth it.....for now.  I am having a hard time trusting and this breaks my heart a little.  I still want to hold on, though.  I have a little bit more to give before my hands give out and I can't climb anymore.

I believe it is important, sometimes, to pull yourself to the top.  You might not make it, and that may not even be the point.  Maybe the top isn't even there.  Maybe it is the climb that is the point of it all.  As long as it fills your heart and allows you to respect yourself, maybe that is all you need.

"The future will come, come what may. Your fear is that of the unknown and imagined future. Your pain is from attachment in the face of this fear."
samsaranmusing

Four Day Fog

Depression brings with it a fog.  It is a cold gray morning that will not be burned out by the sun, because the sun has lost its warmth.  This is not a fog brought in by little cat feet.  It is a fog that bubbles up from within, pouring from your eyes, ears, and nose and tainting those senses as it goes. It is the voice of the ego made whole and it resonates through everything you do, see, smell, touch, hear. 

For years I was in it thrall, a subject of a Stockholm Syndrome.  So deep was I that I didn’t know any different.  I thought that hole was all the world.

For me, now, the fog lasts a day or maybe four.  It locks me inside my head with a promise to keep me warm from the cold dampness outside. What it has never told me, but what I have begun to realize, is that the very thing it promises to protect me from is the very thing it brings with it.

But I see that now.  I know it to be true.

And when I feel the familiar cold and find that I can’t open my eyes enough to find light, I turn inside and there he is.  Ego.  Smiling like an old friend through soulless eyes he reaches out a cold, long fingered hand and beckons me back to the hole.  But I say “no”.  I reject him. 
I hear his words, I listen to his pleas and I say “no”.  I reject him.

I admit that I am not strong enough yet to be completely immune to his sugared, poisoned words, but I am strong enough that I know them to be lies and that is stronger than I ever was.

So now, after that day or maybe four, I push away the fog and watch it turn in to a cloud in a beautiful, sunny sky.  Ego goes back to whence he came with a promise to return.  I let him know that he is welcome like an old friend.  Now he looks amused and somewhat confused.  He is not used to compassion.  Ego is a part of me and when I bring love to myself I am able to see the light in all my many faces, even that one.  Even better, I am able to see love in the faces of people around me.

That Jerk, Ego

It has been quite some time since I have written here.  That is good because I tend to write here when I am in a quandary.  Lack of posts means lack of quandaries.  It means that I am generally happy and am not confused at the moment.
So, I will post this little tidbit since it is swimming in my mind.


I have a tendency to see a beautiful woman and then want her.
I know, strange behavior for a man. 
My issue is that this draw can seem almost overwhelming and I will feel guilty for that lust.  And lust is what it is.  The guilt is present because I love my girlfriend and she is really pretty kick ass.  I would never want to hurt her and to be honest, I don't act on my feelings for random hot chicks.  I just look and wonder what they might look like naked.  I feel badly when I will think about that woman beyond just the initial first glance.  I worry that I would act if that woman were to approach me and initiate something. 

It has happened before.
It wasn't a good thing.

It makes me wonder about my will power and my drive towards the pull of lust.  Then I remember that all of that stuff is Ego stepping in.  Ego is that voice telling you that you want more.  Ego is the force that pushes you in the direction of harmful action. Ego is telling me that I want to fuck this chick or that regardless of who might get hurt.  It wants me to have more and more and more.
Ego is a dick.

I suppose this recognition is a really good thing and that the the learning experience is the presentation of these women.  Ego is the reason that I place so much value in the attention of women and in the acquisition of them physically.
Now that I have recognized it, I need to let it go.  That is a challenge.