Do you Still Listen to Chico Buarque at Night?

There is no way to summarize my experience over the last few months...

I wonder how I will look back upon this time of my life in a few years. Even in a few months...

You can only imagine what it is like before it happens. And then....it is nothing like you imagine. Strange. I had heard it was like an expanding of your heart, to hold another person so dear.... but it is so much more than that. It is more like an expanding of your entire being, to the point where it bursts and dissolves into the background, replaced by an ever expanding view of another being. This beautiful little creature, wholly unknown, and yet oddly familiar, looking at you with the most mysterious, unblemished expression.

And to think...this is my beautiful little creature. What an extraordinary and downright shocking statement that is. It still does not feel real.

But like everything in my life, it is always a sign of importance the less real something feels to me. A permanent state of awe, astonishment, disbelief that something this blessed and beautiful has been given to me. The shining eyes of a rabbit....

I have been in no state to write for quite some time now. It all happened so fast at the beginning of June, so unexpected. I know a little better my own limits, to say the least. It has made me feel weaker in all the right ways.... and awakened me to a strength and self-awareness I did not know I could ever achieve. In many ways, I feel peace like I never thought I could before. A sort of completeness, despite many circumstances in my life still being left messy and undone. It is as if I was able to endure pain beyond anything I could have previously imagined, gracefully. It leaves me with feelings of hope. A renewed persistence in the face of what is certain to be endless struggle for the remainder of my days, and the days of those that I love.

I'll be here, as firm as the ground. 

“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

Expanding and retracting

How deep can these trenches I walk in be dug? Day after day, pressing the muddy earth beneath my feet, feeling the line imprinted by repeated steps sink a little further. Knowing the salt and water squelching softly with each footfall is remnants of tears cried on previous journeys along the same path....

Every day is darker down here, but when I happen to look up, I see the sky; a vibrant, piercing blue full of the trills of birds, the warmth of the sun, fresh breezes that can invigorate me. But it is, sadly, beyond my reach. I can only glimpse it with my eyes, my other senses blocked by dense muddy walls and distracted by the constant lurching forward along my little line...

Perhaps someday I can embrace the life of a mole, blind and happy with a life lived in darkness, burying myself alive, eating soft brown granules of dirt, digging trenches into tunnels so far removed from the world that to be alone is natural and unquestionable...

There are days where it almost seems possible. And then there are days where the very thought of trying makes me want to quit all together...quit everything. But it is far too late for that. 

Lord, I know I must rely on you... It is too hard for me even to do that on my own. Please bring me back to you... Please... I know I don't deserve it... And may even be selfish in the request... 

Why are there so many days where it feels as though everything I do for him is unappreciated? Why do I still question whether or not he even loves me? Are these feelings justified by his behavior or am I misreading his actions? I'd like to think I am able to decipher these things correctly at this point but...

 ....will there always be a part of me that feels unloved and unwanted? Even worse, used without being appreciated and still viewed as inadequate as a lover? 

this is why the mole life seems so enticing...to be so ignorant, to simply keep grinding away at my life, giving and not receiving, and being...ok... With it. Maybe not ok, but at least...not thinking about it so that it cannot torture me any longer. To be just a happy little tool for someone else...

Well that seems all the more likely to happen now anyway, even if I do not choose it. I guess that's good. Maybe soon I can stop posting things like this. Happy in my nothingness.

an individuals values should be socialist, while the overall structure remains capitalist

An idea I would like to explore further soon is one that has been slowly percolating in my mind over the last few weeks, with all of the political and social upheaval upon us. Such seemingly polar opposites in terms of attitudes about how the world should be run....

But really, the problem is not one choice system or the other, rather, it is the underlying motivations or desires that drive humanity at an individual level. History shows us over and over that all political systems ultimately end up with corruption. So what is it that is corrupting them?

Obviously, it is us.

Until human beings are incorruptible, everything we propagate will become corrupted. It is intrinsic to our very cores to use any source of power to our own selfish advantage, and those who obtain this power will inevitably cause great damage from this selfish motivation.

Ideally, our world would be one with economic, cultural, and political freedom, but with innate and 100% agreed upon innate values of personal responsibility and compassion towards others.

Hmm..... feels like an incomplete thought. I will keep on percolatin'.

Such an exquisite form of suffering...

And it is one that will never be shared with anyone else... and thats ok.

I think, really, I just want someone who will share this burden with me, even just once and a while... as long as it was somewhat reliable...as ridiculous a desire that is...

But, I am the selfish one. Its true.  I am the one who lets other people down. I do in fact know it is true. I am the one who can't be enough. The truest of all. There's just not enough left of me to be that way....and I can't explain it to anyone, and why should I even have the right to try?

And now, I can't even allow myself to feel this way. I can't, I can't , its not safe. I could hurt someone so dear, I have to learn how to be OK with it. I have to learn how to recover quickly and keep going. There is no time anymore to wallow in my depression.

 Now is when I will let the tears fall, silent as always. Now is when I will let myself feel the weight of all my pain, all of your pain, all rolled into one. I never claimed to be perfect, though I strive to understand it all, to be your all, to hold the burden. And I know, it is only possible to a degree. It is impossible to ever understand all the internal turmoil experienced by another person, just as it is impossible not to be effected by the fiery lashings, the bottomless pit of depression that pulls at every corner of this house after years of seeping in it. How horrible it sounds when I write it out. Because it is.

 How am I supposed to make any decisions when I feel this way? So ridiculously broken and confused. So dead to myself, to the world, to everything. So alone with it all, because there is no chance of finding support anymore, from anyone other than those who cannot go or dare not go to the places I reside most frequently, and which are in such need of another mind. I give even a small piece of my burden to you and it breaks you under the weight of the burden you already carry, and then the lashings begin again. It is to be expected. It has to be. Lets just agree on that, ok? I can't keep trying to share and be received by a wild animal, ripping me to pieces. I am sorry if this is selfish. That is why I am writing it all here, so I won't have to share it with you, or with anyone else. It can die here, this piece of myself.

I am not sure what will be left but I will find a way to keep going, to be there for you. Pretending I am whole and well again when you find your way back to some state of equilibrium.