To walk with purpose, not always with alacrity, not always with the weight of the world, just walking.
When I was hiking years ago with my friends, it was all about point a. to point b.. The trail ahead of me my focused task on so many occasions that I often ignored my surroundings. Yes, a part of that was my ill health and fear of a pending cardiac arrest or stroke; Another part being the various states of mind I held. Those hikes were all about the alcohol and marijuana, and how comfy you could get without killing yourself with weight, there was a liquid to solid ratio we had to individually keep. So as for all of the memories of those hikes, there is plenty of things forgotten or missed along the way too.
The last few weeks has been a trudge, just a baseline, get me through the day trudge. Not a depressive state, or a relaxing one, not one filled with manic behaviors or mood swings. I have observed my thinking going stray into old malaize and corrected it accordingly. I have noticed also my lack of tolerance and my ego plays, and have practiced well what I know to change the character defects from being front and center. It is almost like a scene from the Six Million Dollar Man, where everything is moving in freeze frame slow motion; The work is paying off in ways that are as filled with grace as they are lessons. The difference between today and those hikes I had in my past, is today I would more likely be able to tell you how many Dragonflies we saw on the trip and my face would be color filled from keeping my head up and aware.
Maybe it is just a comfort and place of security when you know that you have done all that you can, and the best that you can do it? I could lay all of my good fortune and kind dogma upon a single program or belief, but I would be ill advised to do so. This is the grace of being meek in my thinking, ignorance is bliss does not have to have negative connotations if you know how to use it properly. Little did I know I had a test coming up so soon.
I began to write this piece on a Saturday morning, by the end of that morning I would learn that my wife’s old friend has decided to take his own life the night before. It is an irony of life, and not a painless one at that. Those same delusions of comfort and finalization had taken ahold of me at times very roughly. I had spoken with this friend, I knew the struggles of addiction and depression he was going through. In the end though he didn’t reach out, he didn’t call my wife for a caring shoulder, a knowing friendship that can heal.
The gratitude grows with every passing day, and passing friend that just couldn’t find their way through the rest of their lives. I thought back to my sister, and friends that had shortened their days here to show some of us that there is another way to do this thing, there is another life out there waiting, if we were willing. I am worried today about a test in Math class, because I have decided to go forward. I have worked for the change and I have also accepted much, mostly just the honest truth that I have much to learn and do still. It was very easy for me to believe my life was at an ending just a few years ago. I had no idea how true that was, because that life did end in theory, it changed into something more beautiful than I could ever have imagined. I cannot and do not have the right or ability to get anyone else to this place unless they ask, are willing to listen to themselves. Because the change came not only from the work that it takes to change things, it came mostly from the ability to listen to myself and change those thoughts and actions from the inside out.
That is why at times like this it is an overt act of forgiveness I have to offer not only others, but myself as well. This life is filled with grace and compassion beyond belief to many, it is filled with a gratitude that brings me to my knees when even thought about lightly. I cannot give it out as a gift, I cannot save others from their own thinking, that is not my place. I can be an example of the fact, the honest fact that life can change, it will get better, and taking one’s life is not a solution, it is just the first car in a multi car collision of effects, leaving nothing, a black hole that cannot tell you their pain, or torment any longer. That is the sadness, knowing it will change, and seeing it never have the chance to. There is no fairness doctrine to this thing called life, there is no lasting defense against the march of time and the constants of change. Society cannot live in a snapshot, and neither should people or their lives be made into one. Forgiveness.
The trudge of this journey continues, it is filled with blessings and falls. I would not turn that light out now, I know that there is always a better day ahead. I hold that hope for all of those near and dear to me as well. I care too much to allow those black holes to be held silent, I feel too much responsibility of kind, to pay back to the world what was freely given me. It is part of the gratitude I hold so very close to all that I meet in my life and the journeys and lessons I attain from each and every one of them. To those that remain, I will still commence to give, and all are welcome to trudge with me along this journey called life.