The Season of life Changes & the magic lost between the pages. part 2.

        

“And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don't believe in magic will never find it.” 

― Roald Dahl

Because life isn’t a journey, for every journey ends and when it ends, we go on. There are no do-overs and second chances come as rare as a flower blooming in the dead of winter, but we learn and carry on. Sometimes we’re heavier from the burdens we take on and carry with us; sometimes we become lighter by sharing our burdens with those closest to us. Sometimes we complain and feel that our burdens are too much, but the weight isn’t what matters, what matters is that we carry it. Because the world turns and turns and we with it, plans fall apart, things change, scars fade, but the memory, the memories always remain and sometimes there’s a moment that hovers and settles for but a moment, leaving us forever and inexplicitly changed in the most unexpected of ways, ways we never thought or felt before. And it’s then that our dreams take over and it’s there I see you and it seems that wherever I go, I find you, you’re there, my luck, my fate, my fortune, my life, my blessing and my curse. But it's not all about you, or where in the stars your destiny lies, it’s about the here and now and what you find in the hidden depths of your soul, it’s where we go from here, as the ashes of what was and what might have been finally settle down around us, leaving us forever transformed, this is it, this is the now and it’s when you finally decide where you’re going to go from here. 

You see we’re born with this light burning brightly within us all and sometimes the light flickers and goes out and we have to rage against the dying of the light, doing all we can to keep it aglow, fanning the soft, warm embers to make the those internal fires grow. So I’m writing to those who haven’t yet lost that irreplaceable spark, whose life may have, or is being made miserable because they think no one wants, loves or believes in them. They don’t know that those people always doing the telling are wrong, because they lost their way and forgotten about the light which burns so brightly against the night showing them the way and that makes them jealous of the light we still have casting away the shadows of despair, regret, and bitterness that would otherwise ruin our perfectly good and happy little lives. And I want to help those people find what makes them special and if you can’t see that, then you’re also wrong, just like my mother. So why don’t you go ahead and write this down and let me show you what one person in a million can really do, let me prove that they’re wrong and your dreams are worth fighting for, you’re worth fighting for and you’re good enough, even when you believe you’ll never be. Because you already are, you’re already good enough; you’re perfect because you’re you and you’re here now.

           

            I spent a lifetime trying to be someone else’s idea of perfect, bending myself to the will of others, molding myself like soft clay found in a riverbank, with no one but me to thank. I use to try so hard to be what someone else wanted me to be, even though it was slowly killing me, with everyone always looking at m and believing they knew me, seeing whatever they wanted to see. I was the geek who never had the courage to talk to you, the loser who never could get a break, the wannabe trying so hard just to be notice and be one of you, the jerk who kept pushing you away out of fear you’ll get too close, the coward who pretended I didn’t like you because “the cool” kids didn’t and I didn’t want to risk being associated with the likes of you, I was the creep who wanted so desperately for you to notice me, but whenever I would speak the words would come out all wrong, twisted and forever lost upon my tongue. but always hoping it’ll be enough to get you see through my charade and see through to the real me, wanting, needing you to just give me a chance or just  push me in the right direction. Because I was the nerd who was always lost in a book and I was never one of the herds, because I never wanted to think about going home, I was the one who everyone always left alone. I was the introvert, wishing I could just convert and not be so afraid to show you that part of me that only a few ever got to see, I wanted to be an extrovert. But I wasn’t, I was the dweeb all the bullies would seek, perceiving me as being nothing more than weak, when in reality I was just unique.

            I was all these things and more, never telling anyone how I would smile and joke, while inside I was always mess, fighting a private war in the confines of my own adolescent mind, struggling just to get by. Spending countless days sitting in class, quietly debating suicide or wishing I could just turn from all of this and run away. With all my words never being enough and feeling so frustrated all I wanted to do was scream and cuss.

             But that was before, before I found my way, before I rediscovered my faith and found God, or he found me and without ever realizing it, he had become guide. He led me to a girl who eyes were like the sunrise, who saved my wretched life and helped me rediscover my lost faith. She affected me more profoundly and in more ways than my words could ever say. But since that day we met in the library, I know I’ve been left forever and inexplicitly changed and I’ll always carry a part of her in my heart, my shooting star, my best friend, when went away and had went so very far away.

            So I know what you’re thinking, you think you already know me, you think I’ll stand up here today and just tell you my name, then I’ll share with you my story, a story you probably won’t believe, because you believe you know the truth and you believe that there is none, because to you it’s been forgotten and you may even believe that the truth is even a lie. But you’d be wrong, because the truth is real and the truth is still absolute, even when it’s cold and cruel and more painful than any lie.

            So take it from me, no matter where life takes you, too big cities, to small towns, you'll inevitably come across small minds. There will be people who think that they're better than you. People who think that material things, physical beauty and popularity automatically make them better, and a more worthwhile human being. But they’re wrong and I'd like to tell you that none of these things really matter unless you have the strength of character, integrity and a sense of pride about yourself. To fight the hardest battles, to make the greater sacrifice, like walking away from your truest love, knowing she’ll never see you the same as you do her, no matter how badly you wished you could. It means being her friend to the very end and ignoring how much it hurts, because she makes you a better human being, challenging your imagination and intellect.
            So if you are ever so lucky to have any one of these things, don't ever give them up, don’t ever change and don’t ever sell out. Because beauty fades and popularity never lasts and not even gold can stay, it’s like the changing of the seasons, leaves will always change and fall away all the time. Life ebbs and flows, changing all the time, inexplicitly, in the most amazing and unexpected ways, ways you never thought, imagined or believed possible. 

     So when you meet a person for the first time, please don't judge them by their station in life, or the situation they’re in, give them a chance to show you who they really are, because who knows... that person just might end up saving your life, and becoming your very best friend…But that’s my story and what is now a part of me. For my friends come from different walks of life, each and every one of us were as different from each other as night is from day, I grew up the outcast with no real friends, but I met a jock, a goth, a genius, a band geek, a choir boy and a real rock-N-roller. We were all from different social circles and clicks, who found ourselves converging on this random path called life, becoming the closest of friends, becoming brothers and closer than family. Of course we didn’t always get along, most of us started out, hating, despising, or disliking each other for one reason or another, but somehow we found a commonality and it ensnared us so completely and enigmatically, pulling us together despite the fascist tides of discrimination and hatred a friendship like ours can sometimes breed. We came together on a random day in the middle of spring and discovered we had more in common than we had first believed. The result made us all a little stronger and wiser in ways we never thought possible. I still remember the day when I felt it, a unique sense of magic blossoming that day on the bus as he spoke excitedly about meeting up and hanging out later that day at Steven’s after school, when true friendship blossomed from the most unlikely of people who formed an even more unlikely bond, one that survived long distance and the ever changing tides of time.

          Life is filled with change and people change all the time, but they never say how much. So I could stand up here today and tell you my name is Joshua A. Cooper, I can tell you I’m a dreamer, an avid reader and a speaker who struggles to say the words that he means and this is me, finally coming clean and telling you that I love, even as I wonder what it means, I have days where I feel like I’m coming apart at the seams and days that are more incredible than anything I could possibly hope for or dream. So you may or may not believe the words I have to say, because you don’t know me, but still life goes on and on, filled with endless possibilities, with its various risks, pleasures and consequences, making us question our time here and what we do with the time we are given and how precious little of it we have left. It’s how we let our circumstances shape and mold us into who we are, making me who I am, making me the person the Lord has always meant for me to be, which is just me and it’s incredibly freeing to simply be yourself and not what everyone else wants you to be.

The Season of life Changes & the magic lost between the pages.

                                 The Season of life changes &

             The magic lost between the pages

The one thing that you have that nobody else has is you. Your voice, your mind, your story, your vision. So write and draw and build, and play and dance and live only as you can-Neil gaiman

        
   Its two a.m. and I can can’t sleep again, so I decided to sit down in this computer chair and just start writing again, not really knowing where I’ll end, but the voices of the past are telling me where I should begin and trying to fall back asleep has lost its appeal, so I sit back and wondering if any of this is even real.

            I’ve had this passion for story telling since I was boy, I started off hating to read, but the words were quiet and persistent, inviting me into these whole new worlds, filled with both magic and wonder, offering me an escape from the place I didn’t want to be and making me wish I could always be as I was, free and carefree as any kid. I wanted to live forever as a child, to always find myself on one adventure or another, to explore the world with wonder and imagination. I saw castles, fortresses, crept past enemy lines, discovered lost and hidden abilities that I never knew I had and I never wanted to let any of it again.

In books I would lose myself completely in their pages, becoming momentarily lost in the books I’ve read, imagining what it would be like to discover a den of thieves and to don that invisible cape, to right wrongs, to save princesses, to become the hero I always wanted to be and to live in those moments, even if they lasted for just a moment. But I would carry those stories with me, with the characters often becoming my friends and would often occupy my thoughts as I drifted off to sleep. Habitually dreaming of meeting those characters who I loved, respected and admired, befriending or falling in love with them as we shared an epic journey, which would make me cling to sleep and those memories of dreaming long after my waking hours. Growing up I was found to be a quiet and introspective, spending long car rides just staring out the window letting my imagination run rampant, my thoughts wonder.

            It’s these experiences and the memories that carry me through the long and lonely days. It wasn’t long after I fell in love with reading that I stated writing my own stories, creating my own characters, some of which I still carry with me today and write about. I was eight years old by the time I started crafting my own stories, with their twist and turns, sharing them excitedly with family, friends and the teachers who marveled over my creativity and originality, which motivated me to only write more.

I fell in love with words and the art that comes with writing your very own story, in your very own voice, putting yourself and working aspects of those closest to you and the ones you admired into the stories you craft. Of course, every story I wrote had characters born from different parts of me. Some were how I saw myself, while some were everything I wished I could be and who were still perfectly flawed, while others were mirror opposites of me and everything I believed in. They represented me as I imagined if I were to lose or forget myself, making the villains I would write all the more interesting and complex and born from the advice a young film maker gave me on a chance meeting when I was at Kings Island with my father, which is that even the most villainous of characters are never truly evil, most of the time they believe they’re doing the right thing.

But Even as a kid I believed that very few people ever thought of themselves as evil, less still ever wanted to be the villain. In their journey and in their eyes, they often saw themselves as heroes themselves. But every character has a journey, one that makes them who they are and often when I would sit in the car staring out the window I would imagine how my life would be with these different scenarios that often played on inside my head. Often wondering how I would have turned out if my father won custody instead of my mother, or if I stopped believing in God and fell in with a bad crowd, how would I turn out.

                Then one day I sat at the dinner table, working on an outline to a story I was writing for my friends, when my mother asked me what I wanted to do after high school. And do you know what she said to me when I told her I wanted to be a writer? She laughed and said “You shouldn’t, your chances are one in a million of you being successful,” And I said “Maybe, I’m that one,” And she said “But you’re not, instead you should consider going in the military or getting into politics, because you have a better shot at being the President then you ever will being a writer.” She tried telling me I should give up on my dreams and to pursue a carreer where the financial success was more guaranteed, she tried telling me to give up on the one thing that I loved, what made me feel alive and to simply give it up.

            She didn’t care how much I loved to write, or that I felt like it was the one true thing that I could offer the world and how I dreamed of being able to change it. I know it may seem silly to you, but even back then I believed in words and if you could string together the perfect combination of words, you could save the world from itself. I was seventeen years old and I knew this to be true, because I’ve already seen the change my words had created in the people around me. I’ve turned enemies into close friends and my friends became my best friends, my brothers and all because of writing, which was the catalyst for everything. There were people who never liked me, who saw me as geek, a nerd, a loser, a fag, but I found my way with my words, sparking the sense of wonder of those around me, watching as they clung to every word I spoke and read to them the first page of my story, with my voice trembling and my hands shaking, until I looked up and saw all their eyes were upon me and leaning forward in their seats, with all of them listening to me, clinging to my every word. In the span of a few heartbeats and for the first time in my life, I had won over an entire room, I was thirteen then.

      

      Giving up on writing would never be an option and something that I always felt would cost me my very soul, because I had all these stories in me and these characters who wanted, needed to their tale to be told. And you know what I discovered by chasing my own dreams? My mother was wrong. And whatever she thought she saw in me was also wrong…Because I am that one in a million and so are you. We all have that something special inside of us, we’re born with storms, tidal waves, comets and forest fires raging on within us, we’re all born and gifted with magic and I for one was born in a magic time, in a magic world and no, not everyone could see what I saw then and what still see now. You see, we’re all born into this world of magic and wonder, connected my silver filaments of both chance and circumstance, and when I was child, I could talk to animals, sing to birds, read stories in the clouds and see my destiny in tiny grains of sand, the world was my magic ring and by its soft warm glow I protected, saved and changed the world countless times. Sometimes I was alone and sometimes I accomplished even greater feats with my brothers or the friends I made along the way, my world was in constant flux, growing and shrinking whenever friends came or went away, but no matter what, we were always connected by this web that connects and binds us all together. Friends, brothers, family and all the people we meet along the way on this journey called life, joining us, becoming connected, with some friendships lasting for only day while others forever. Learning slowly and over time that people will always come and go in our lives, no one leaves this world alive and those who leave us, leave behind permanent impressions and their fingerprints of who they were and what they meant to us on our very soul, for they may not always be with us, but their words will last forever in our hearts, the memory of those random strangers who came into our lives offering us their hand in friendship when we needed it, bonding in that single moment forever frozen in that one moment in time. The friends I made on vacation back when I was a kid, or more recently when I went to Fandom Fest in Louisville, Kentucky, making friendships I wouldn’t soon forget and all the likeminded people I met, with the memories of who they were and the friendship we forged during my two day stay was and still is baffling to me, leaving me still wondering how and where they are now and if they ever got their flask signed by those two movie-stars who we all loved and admired. Norman Reedus and Sean Patrick Flannery.    

Dating & colds

I’m amidst fighting off a wicked cold, which has me feeling miserable and believe me when I say it’s a bit hard to write when you’re congested, coughing, sneezing, with your thoughts feeling clouded from the cold and probably a little because of all the medicine running through your system. So with my eyes feeling so dry they feel like they’re about to bleed, I decided to take this time to write a blog, even though I just want to climb into bed and underneath my warm comforter, because this is an issue that keeps coming up and bugging me. So I pray you understand where I’m coming from and I don’t wake up in the morning with hate mail, or lost followers. 

But being as I decided to step back out into the dating scene after taking a year hiatus from the dating world, to get my head right and figure out what it is exactly I want in a relationship. Naturally a few female friends have taken it upon themselves to try and fix me up with anyone who shows me the slightest bit of interest and when I say “No thanks,” and when they ask why, I’m forced to tell these friends that I don’t or didn’t find the other person physically attractive, which often gets me a dirty looks, or I get called mean, pig-headed or shallow as I'm told how looks don’t matter, but you thing of it is, I disagree.

Now, if someone were to judge another's personality, or refuse to be friends with someone, just because of their physical appearance, then yes, I would call that shallow, or petty and even discriminatory. But I don't believe the same applies to romantic and physical relationships.

What defines physical attraction is different for each of us, everyone is different and everyone had different attributes they find attractive in the opposite sex. Some like redheads over blonds, short over tall people and just because one person doesn’t find a particular feature attractive doesn’t mean another person wouldn’t. For example I’m attracted to short girls, which doesn’t mean I can never be attracted to a tall girl, or won’t consider dating a girl taller than me. But it'll take a little more for me to date someone taller than me, despite how gorgeous she might be, which is where personality will become the determining factor and I will never date a girl just because I found her physically attractive but not her personality.   

Furthermore, I feel that for intimate relationships to work, there needs to be physical chemistry and that spark at the beginning of the relationship. Of course in the long term, personality is what matters most. But I think it's ignorant to discount the importance of mutual physical attraction and say that "looks don't matter”. But I still get dirty looks when someone asks my opinion on someone else and I tell them how I thought they were great but I wasn't physically attracted to them. I can't control or help what I'm attracted to, no more than I can control what foods I like to eat.

Saying that "looks matter" gets you evil glances. People calling you shallow, a pig, judgmental or picky, It's not saying that a certain type of look is all that matters. It's not the same as saying "everyone has to look like a super model". Just that two people's definitions of attraction need to mesh.

When it comes to dating, I for one am not attracted to overweight girls, I’m sorry. But I’m not saying that overweight people unattractive and I know many of you may find that objectionable, which is okay. I’m not flawless, but I am being honest. This is something I believe a lot of us think, but never say.

I'm not trying to make broad, sweeping generalizations about appearances here. I'm just writing as accurately as I can, and as true to myself as I can. Maybe I’m not pulling it off as well as I can or should, maybe I didn't explain it in this blog as well as I could have. But after tirelessly debating with friends, strangers and a few matches I got paired with, where I tried being nice, by telling them I live a very physically active life-style and I want someone to share that part of me and sometimes I responded to their messages by apologizing profusely that I simply wasn’t attracted to them, just because I don’t know the etiquette of online dating and getting messages from a match and personally I find it rude to simply ignore their message. Because I know what it’s like to sitting there wondering if they got you message, if they found someone, or if they just didn't like me. For me not knowing often feels worse than knowing and for remarkable most of these girls thanked me for my honesty and some I have spoken with and we talked about our experiences on the site, or on other dating sites, with some of these people becoming e-mail pin pals who check in on each other every now and then. 

But I digress and I guess what I’m trying to say is that no one here can say what’s beautiful except for you. Beauty as they used to say when I was a kid is always in the eye of the beholder, and I believe that. There have been girls I found attractive that no one else saw, who would sometimes mock or ridicule me about my crush, but it never changed what I found attractive in someone else. And even though I’m starting to try and find the one for me again, by trying out e-harmony and other dating sites, I just want to say I’m not looking for a super-model, but I would like someone who had a healthy body type, they can be thin yes, average, athletic or curvy, I want someone I can go running with, take hiking, go on long road trips, someone I can sing awfully too, someone who inspires me, that person I can hold, who’ll hold me in return, that someone to help me live and grow with. Someone I can just trust and know all the love I possess. And I happily accept that some people aren't going to agree with that. But if you don't or don't like the way I handled this topic, hopefully you can now understand a bit why I gave it a shot in the way that I did.

My best-friend Hannah helping me find my heart.