Forgetting all that hurt you hide so well and saving you from yourself.

Depression: Dealing with the pain and the healing part 2. 

Forgetting all that hurt you hide so well and saving me from myself.
Depression: Dealing with the pain and the healing part 2. 

“I didn't want to wake up. I was having a much better time asleep. And that's really sad. It was almost like a reverse nightmare, like when you wake up from a nightmare you're so relieved. I woke

up into a nightmare.” ― Ned Vizzini, It's Kind of a Funny Story

Have you ever just felt like you don’t know what’s going on anymore? Like you don’t care about anything anymore, like you’ve lost your motivations to do just about anything and you’re confused about your feelings and you can’t explain how you feel. You have that feeling of emptiness and the feeling that no one is there for you. That feeling that no one understands you anymore. And it seems like there’s nothing to look forward to anymore?
Yeah I get those feelings too.

I recently suffered a bit of a breakdown, where everything just suddenly got to me. Normally I can maintain a pretty good hold on my depression, almost to the point where I half convince myself that I’m cured. However recently, I found myself on a downward spiral. Unable to pick myself up, feeling lost, broken, betrayed and like a burden on my friends and family. Added with the special topping of stress at work, bills, getting in a car wreck on 10/02/14 which really kind a ruined my weekend. Then of course there’s that hurt, those missing pieces in my heart in the form of my mother as I wonder why she did all the things she’s done.  I won’t lie, I don’t miss many of my mom’s family, but I do miss my brothers, even my older brother, in fact I miss them every day.

 So I fell and it was out of desperation that I reached out via facebook asking for prayers, for support. Because in truth, I was a hair's breadth away from taking my own life, to me, living just felt too painful. I felt like I was trapped in a burning building, with the flames slowly encroaching on me, making it unbearable, and driving me ever closer to that moment where I was honestly thinking that my best option was to jump, because at least then it’d be over.

It took me awhile to read over all the messages and comments people had sent me, offering me their shoulders to cry on and a friendly ear to listen to whatever it was weighing on my soul so heavily. IT helped. Talking with my dad helped a bit more. Going to church and being prayed for by the entire congregation as they all took turns embracing me helped even more.  But I’m still trying to build myself back up, so I’m hoping that writing and telling you about it will help. Because truth is life can be a little hard sometimes.

Truth is, sorrow, despair, loneliness, suicide, are all words we don’t mention in public. These feelings we keep firmly locked away, we dare not discuss. …Though their currents run through us all, in varying ebbs and flows throughout the course of one’s life. Just as hope, passion, happiness and love all run together as well. I believe it doesn’t make us weaker to admit these lulls. As someone once said,

“Acceptance is the first step towards happiness.” Once you’ve leapt off that metaphorical
bridge, when you’ve reached the darkest depths of your inner ocean, just remember to keep kicking for the light at the surface and that’s what I’m trying to do. But sometimes we don’t’ have to jump at all; we just need to learn how to swim.

So if you want to know what depression is like, it’s like feeling like something inside of you if missing, or broken, you feel alone. My chest feels tighter and constricts, like a huge weight is pressing down oppressively on me, making it harder and harder for me to breathe. It’s like I’m trying to swim and keep my head above water while an anchor is tired to my feet and I just can’t catch my breath and I’m slowly losing strength.  I don’t feel real, I don’t feel like I matter, that I’m not really living, like I’m just going through the motions.

I hate depression.

I hate those pity parties people throw whenever they have a dry spell, or go through a breakup, or experience one minor hiccup in an otherwise blessed life and then go on facebook, or twitter, or lamenting to their friends how “They’re so depressed.” When they’re not, they’re really not and it always comes off as “Hey look at me! Give me attention, I’m a little sad”  And this sucks for those of us who are really struggling, which causes people to tell us to nut up, man up, shut up and get over it. I admit, some people do want to throw a pity party for themselves, while the rest of us…we’re barely holding on and just want to crumble at someone’s feet as curl into a ball and just cry.
The pity parties make it harder for those of us who are really suffering to speak out. Because we fear those pity parties, we’re afraid you’ll think we’re just attention starved and we’ll get the same frustrated and annoyed responses those people sometimes get. So I kept my mouth shut, my head down, and I kept doing my best to just limp along. Sometimes, we withdraw and pull away from others, because we’re so consumed with the struggle, which often leads to suicidal thoughts or tendencies, which build and build, often leaving it to our friends and loved ones to pull us kicking and screaming back out into the light.

I hate when people joke about depression or suicide, it’s not really something to be taken lightly or to joke about and makes it harder to notice those who are crying out for help, the ones who need it the most.

Yeah having your heart broken sucks, but it’s hardly as debilitating as constantly thinking, or wanting you life to end, because you just feel miserable and alone. It’s more like you’ve forgotten your smile somewhere and no matter what you do, you just can’t find it, so you wear a false one and tell everyone you’re fine, when you’re really not.

Many of my long time readers and friends may remember when I spoke about trying to take my own life. But I survived and I half convinced myself that I survived for a reason, there had to be reason didn’t there? Doesn’t there have to be a reason?  And in a strange way these questions I ask myself help keep me going.  Maybe I’ll write something world changing that’ll spark that positive change we so desperately need into today’s world.  Because I’ve always been a survivor and it helps to sometimes think that there is a plan for me, that I wasn’t this monumental, cosmic accident my mother and my depression lead me to believe.  But still, it doesn’t make living any easier. I struggle and strain against the ores every day, searching for a reason to smile, looking for that connection, to feel loved and accepted. I do this every day and it does help whenever I’m in a relationship and find little texts on my phone letting me know she was thinking about me, or just to say hello.

So this is my voice and there may be many like it, but this one is mine and these are my words, and this time it’s for the mothers and daughters, the fathers, sons and friend and the sons of sons.  We all have our own private battles we’re raging against, currents we’re struggling with, and loss we’re trying to come to terms with. Believe me, we’re trying to heal, but the healing leaves scars, scars on our hearts, minds and souls, wounds you’ll never see and we’re always too terrified to show.

The bullies and those like them have spent their life telling me I was and am a failure.
So time and again I wrapped my heart in a cast and I sign it, “They were wrong! Because they had to be wrong,”  

My name is Joshua Cooper. I suffer from depression. It’s an ongoing process until I find peace.  There are days when I think I’ll be okay, that everything will be alright, when I busy myself with my writing, or reading to help pass the time, when I’m surrounded by loving friends and family, when we’re all together and having fun. I find the secret to staying alive is staying busy. Going to the gym and doing my best to stay healthy, going on long runs to help clear my head. Having faith also helps and gives me someone to talk to for when it all feels to be crashing down around me. But still what works best is having good friends and family around, having good times, sharing in the laughter, the celebration and love of those closest to us. You see, love, laughter and good company are all enemies of depression.

One of the things I hate the most about depression, is how eventually most everybody at one point or another says, “I’ve had bad things happen to me too, get over it.”

Get over it.

Seriously, get over it? Like I somehow could just let go of all that pain, the fear, the rejection, the doubt, and just forget about it. Because believe me, if it were that easy, I would. I would open my hands and just let go.  There is no just getting over it and we need something more than some advice you read one time off the back of a cereal box. What we need is to not feel alone, to be validated and have someone just hug us, to hold and say “Yeah, that sucks, I’m so sorry, but I still love and care about you.”

I hate when people think the thought of letting go and forgetting hadn’t occurred to me before, or realize I’ve been fighting tooth and nail just keep my heads above water. You just can’t compare your life to mine and say, “get over it,” or “stop it,” like the cure for depression can be found in the contents of a first aid kit, because trust me, I’ve looked, it’s not there.

I hate when others feel the need to compare their lives to mine and attempt to tell me how they were depressed, or sometimes get depressed and tell you how they pushed on, like it’s somehow meant to make me feel better. You can’t compare one life to another, you will never know the injustices I or anyone else has suffered, every situation is different, every battle personal, we are not legion, we are one. I am one, I am an individual, and my pain is real, not made up and not in my head. It’s mine, there’s so much I didn’t tell, so much I’ve never told. Things I struggle to tell people, because what happened to me feels unbelievable and I still hurt because of it.  This loss, this pain, can’t be compartmentalized or filed away and when I sit down and tell you these things you’ll only ever be the outsider looking in. It’s like breaking a bone and having someone who’s never had a broken bone in their life telling you to just breathe and telling you it can’t hurt as badly as you’re making it out to be and comparing it to the time when they stubbed their toe. It’s not all relative, it’s not trying to recover from a broken heart, which I admit, that alone cuts deep and becomes a soul hurt. But having your heartbroken is more like a beautiful sadness that inspires poetry, growth, music and teaches us compassion. Everyone suffers from broken heart at least once and it should make you feel more alive because there was something in this life that actually made you feel this hurt.

For me, my depression began when I was still just a kid, it was shortly after my parents got a divorce and it didn’t take long for the hurt to begin. My mom would always go on and on, telling me that my dad didn’t really love or even want me, that he was just trying to win my affection so when I grew of age, I would choose to live with him instead of with her. All so that he could get out child support, and then he would always tell me the same thing about her. As a child, it wore on me, and in the end, it was my mother who was proven wrong, as it it was my father’s words which rang true, which still hurt. (To my dad’s credit, he did stop telling me these things about my mother when I told him how it was tearing me apart and explained she was always saying the same about him)

Worse I grew up with buckteeth, greasy, messy hair, warts, failing eyesight and a bad speech impediment.  So school was bad enough and almost every day I would get teased and made fun of. But worse was coming home and having my older brother teasing me even more about my teeth, my speech and the warts on my left hand while mom would sit and laugh, while forbidding me to ever say anything in return, daring me to get upset. I would always try to ignore him at first, but he would never stop and I would eventually feel like a stick of TNT lit from both ends, so I would explode. I would say every hurtful thing that came to my lips, in attempt to show him just how much words could hurt. Of course I would always get in trouble, beaten and then grounded.  I hated growing up in that house.

I hated family gatherings too, because like clockwork they too would always find something to tease me over, usually it was my speech, other times it would be looks, or how my eye would sometimes twitch whenever I ate, unless I really focused and concentrated  on not doing it, (The result of one of my numerous beatings I received, sometimes by the hot wheels racetrack which forever altered my Christmas list, making me ask for more Nerf Toys)  but some members of my family made my life a living hell with all their teasing. Of course whenever I would get visibly hurt, or upset, they would say that old stupid rhyme about sticks and stones, as if a broken bone would hurt more than names I was being called, unaware that I would be called them all, all the time, every day. . At home, at school, around and with them.

 So I grew up believing that no one would ever fall in love with me, that I’d be alone forever, and would never feel like the sun was something someone had built for me in a tool shed. An ingrown life it seems is something that even the best surgeons can’t cutaway. Of course it never mattered how mad or upset I would get, they would all just laugh and tell me how I was being too sensitive, that it was all out of good fun, that they were only teasing. But there’s a fine line between harmless teasing and being just toxic and making me ganged up on.

One of the worst feelings in the world is that of everyone ganging up on you, watching you, laughing at you and feeling like you’re on your own. My own family made me feel like a broken branch grafted on a different family tree and would often wonder why I was struggling with depression and why so often I never felt like I belonged.

So I withdrew, I spoke less and less. I disappeared into books, my toys and video games and words, creating my own stories, because there, no one could make fun of me and I couldn’t see everyone  smirking as they all sat and stared, trying to make me say, or do something they could all laugh at. I was eight years old, and I felt like a joke. But back then, I never knew what depression was, or that was something I had, but that’s when it started to fester and grow, when I started praying for death.
I would often wonder if anyone really loved or cared about me, since they would all treat me so poorly and always tell me how they loved me. . How can you believe in love when those who are always claiming to love you are always tearing you down and making you feel worthless, like you’re less than nothing and that your feelings don’t matter?

I hated my life, I hated my bad eyesight, the nose they mocked and ridiculed, I hated all the words I couldn’t say, wondering why no one could just let it go and leave me be, to let me be and let my words be just words and not another opportunity to make me practice and repeat until I got the pronunciation right. Which would be fine one on one, or in private, but having everyone crowd around you mocking you as you try and fail is a bit stress inducing.

  I mean didn’t they see I was struggling, spending years in speech therapy and spending hours and hours practicing how to roll my Rs and curl my tongue. It wasn’t my fault my mouth garbled all the words I was trying to say.

Public school, taught me that kids could be cruel.  I’m not really sure about what grade I was in when the school halls became a battleground, where I found myself outnumbered day after retched day. practicing being invisible, giving no clues I was ever there, becoming like a ghost who roamed the school halls with my head down and doing my best to just shrink away and not be seen, staying inside for recess, because outside was worse.  All I wanted was to fit in and to be accepted, to make everyone my friend, but only a few accepted.

No one understood I was juggling loneliness and depression while walking a tightrope with a noose around my neck, trying to dodge every cruel jibe and School soon became a game of just trying to get out alive….
For those of you who don’t know what it’s like living with depression, let me just say it’s like having this demon, this thing on your back that’s always there whispering things like,

“No one really likes you,”
“You’ll be alone and lonely forever,”

“Why are you even wasting your time talking to this girl, you know she’ll never like you,”
“You’re ugly,”

“You’re dumb,”

“You’re weak!”

“Everyone’s laughing at you,”

Sometimes it’s soft, and almost like a whisper in the back of your mind, and sometimes it shouting and screaming,

“You’ll always be weak and never accomplish anything, so why bother?”

“Hey listen, you’re a burden on everyone around you, you should just kill yourself.”

“Do you know no one will care if you die?”

“Your own mother didn’t even love you, so why would anyone else?”

“You’re just a big joke and everyone is making fun of you behind your back, you’d be better off dead.”

“You’re a loser, you’re stupid, and you’re nothing.” These are all the things that go through the head of someone with depression.

But I fight it and you have to fight it too, you have to believe that things will get better. Because depression….it’s a lie and that’s all it does, it lies to you and it will try its damnedest to make you feel like it’s the truth.

So I guess what I’m trying to say is this, I’m still here, fighting the good fight, for these memories and others like them stem from giving away my todays and having no tomorrows. I love fully, forgive completely, speak softly, I’m slow to anger and above all else, I’m myself. Sometimes it does get hard for me, the bills, friendships, relationships, loneliness, the loss, pain, betrayal’s disappointments and the despair. With the worse knowing that most of my friends or family will never understand how desperate I am to have someone say, I love you and support you just the way you are, because you’re wonderful just the way you are. Most people don’t understand that I can’t remember anyone ever saying that to me. I can be so demanding and difficult for my friends because sometimes I just want to crumble and fall apart before them. Wanting them to love and want to be around me, even though I am no fun, lying in bed, feeling broken and alone, not moving.

My flags are traffic lights, and at night it glows red, amber and green, and I’ve seen them everywhere. So I guess in that sense, the road really is my home. And I’ve got story after story of what it’s like to miss a home-cooked meal, of what it’s like to wake up and feel that absence in your life.

Some days collapse on me like the night. I can tell I haven’t slept when a light peaks through the blinds and finds me with my eyes wide open, hoping I can take all these poems and stories I printed on post-it notes, fold them into tiny boats then launch them towards the shores past your defenses, taking root in your sea of your emotions, and to colonize in the chambers of your heart.
But the days are getting better.

It helps to talk about it. To get it out, it’s like a pressure release but inside you.
I’m still looking for that person, whose kisses make me feel like I’m home and who’s there for me  even when the days get bad and who’ll give me the sun that lives in their smile. I’m a hopeful, wistful, depressed, romantic, geeky, but athletic insomniac, that’s optimistic about tomorrow, looking for whatever reason to smile, even if it means I have to walk another mile.

So remember what I said here, Remember you're not alone and it helps to talk about it.

J

Depression and dealing with the healing.

“You're only given a little spark of madness. You mustn't lose it."-Robin Williams

                I’ve always been very candid about my bouts with depression, which I believe is something that never really goes away, at least not completely. For me, it has always been an ongoing battle, where like everything else there are good days, bad days, then the really bad days and the even worse days, which are the ones you have to really look out for. Because when you’ve battled depression and suicidal thoughts as much as I have, you become all too aware just how easy one can off themselves. I can’t tell you how many times I thought about it, or been tempted.  

           

      I don’t take any medication for my depression, simply because I don’t like the person it makes me, and it just feels like my head is a fog and I find myself becoming less imaginative more restless and lethargic, numb.

             

              I battle my depression by staying active, working out helps a lot; it’s hard to think about killing yourself when you’re feeling sore and tired along with that natural high that comes with a good workout. Having good friends to lean on or to share a few good laughs with also helps, but you have to be sure that they’re the right friends, not the ones who want you around just when it’s convenient, or for what you can do for them, but the ones who just want to hang out for the pleasure of your company.  Family can help too, but most of all I just find solace and peace in keeping myself busy, because it’s only when my mind has a chance to wonder do those dark thoughts come creeping in. So I read, I write, I play video games, or if it’s nice I go hiking or out for a run and sometimes I just dust off my old bike, and then go out for a spin. As you may or may not know, it’s the quiet moments, when you’re alone and with nothing to do but think that causes problems. I’m a little self-critical, I think too much and over analyze, which I’m sure may one day be the death of me, but I’m working on it, I’m a work in progress and this is my progress report.   

But what happens when I have a particular rough day, one that leaves me feeling beat up, abused, left out and alone?  What happens when each day becomes worse than the last and it becomes increasingly harder to pick myself back up from the spot where I lay? My method is simple; I just close my eyes and whisper, 

                “You just have to make it until the day after next, because the day after next will be better.” Then I convince myself that it has to get better and I’ll be honest sometimes it does. But it also helps to remind myself of all the things I have to do that no one else can, even if there’s a chance that no one else will care. Such as finishing my book, and telling the stories of all the characters who have taken up residence up there inside my head, living in the pool of imagination, needing me to breathe life into them by telling their stories through a collection of words, demanding I share their stories with as many people as possible and with the world. Because if I don’t, I know I’ll look up and see all of them gathered around me on my death bed, with some of them sobbing, with some pacing, all asking me the same thing.

                “Why didn’t you give us life? We came to you and you let us die and now we’ll be forgotten without ever having lived, why couldn’t you give a chance to live and breathe? We came to you and no one else, we trusted you with our stories, our lives and with our dreams.”

                I remind myself I can’t disappoint my characters.  

Having faith also helps when it comes to battling depression. Even if you don’t believe in anything, that’s cool (I don’t judge) but it does help, even when it doesn’t. There’s something about talking to God, praying, or seeking communion that I found comforting. For me, the church and a pastor was the first place I could think of going to seek counseling, and that too helped. Then sometimes the only thing that keeps me holding on when all I want to do is let go, is my faith and the fear that I would condemn myself to an eternity in hell. Yet even still there had been times when I thought that God owed me one after everything I had to endure. Losing a family to lies and greed, growing up in a broken home, being forsaken by very own brother that I was just beginning to get to know and who was becoming my best friend and someone I could confide in.

I hate it when people compare their lives to mine, especially when they’ve always got to go home to two loving parents and compare having a bad day to a broken life. In truth, no one really knows your battles but you, same with how no one knows what it was like but me. But honestly I don’t really like talking about it, but I know I should and probably need to, so open my mouth and begin to speak. So I try not to judge when someone begins telling me about their problems, or struggles, I just do my best to sit there and listen, sometimes lending a comforting hug, and maybe just say,

“I can relate,” So that they don’t feel so alone and I hear them out, letting them talk, sometimes it helps just having someone there to listen and not judge their pain or suffering, or compare it to my own. For each battle is a little different from someone else’s. Each struggle is personal, and we deal with it in our little ways.

                Never tell a person with depression to just get over it.
               

                If you really want to help, just be there for them. That’s all it really takes really. Make them feel loved and appreciated and whatever you do, don’t try and force them to talk about it, it’s never easy. It always makes us feel awkward and uncomfortable, like we’re trying to get yours or someone else’s pity, or we think you’re sitting there judging us. It’s always hard to put into words, or to properly articulate what it is we’re going through, what’s on our minds and how difficult the fight is.

So when we do talk and open up about what it is, don’t trivialize what we’re been through and tell us to get over it, like the contents of a first-aid kid somehow holds the cure for depression. Because it’s hard enough just talking about it and an ingrown life isn’t something surgeons can just cut away with a scalpel and a knife. 

Just being there for us is enough and what we really need are reasons to smile and to laugh until it hurts, we don’t need some inspirational quote you’ve read from the back of a cereal box one Sunday morning, and we don’t need to quote passages from the bible, or verses to us. All that ever does is infuriate and frustrate us, more so that you think a few deep or clever words would somehow be a magical string of words that would forever bring us out of our depression and despair that we’ve spent most of our lives fighting. So believe me when I say, it’s not that easy to make go away and if it were that simple we would have found the cure long before you came along, no offense. Sometimes all we really need is a friend, a hug, or something as little as companionship, just being around is usually enough. You don’t have to be clever, or preachy, just be thoughtful. 

If you’re in a relationship and your significant other is struggling, just remind them how much you love and appreciate them. Leave them little love notes, make them dinner, or buy them something meaningful, flowers, chocolates, whatever it is they like, or hobby they’re into. Because it’s the little things we remember and it’s up to you to be the light at the end of the tunnel and it’s you that has to be the one to remember to always shine bright. Because sometimes, we just need to be reminded to remember and it falls to you to make them remember. Love is really all you need.

Robin Williams was a beloved actor and comedian, one my childhood heroes and I never dreamt of him having this struggle with depression, which had driven him to take his own life on August 11^th 2014.  Which also prompted me into writing this particular entry, so maybe we’ll be able to avoid this kind of tragedy from happening again and to just raise some general awareness on the subject at hand, since many of us struggle and fight this disease privately.  Like Robin Williams who once made the world laugh and just listening to or watching his stand-up had pulled me through many a dark day. I honestly feel for him and relate with his struggle that he ended up losing in the end. The problem is that suicide isn’t really all that selfish,(now hear me out before you ready your torches and pitchforks) When someone gives up, they just opt out. They grow tired and weary of feeling like a burden, or like a joke, as though everyone is laughing at us, as opposed to laughing with us. We feel alone and lost, a lot of times we don’t to talk about it, because we feel like we’ll just be a bother. It’s nobody’s fault, you just have to understand how scared we are to talk about it, how weak it makes us feel. So we tend to shutout the rest of the world because we don’t want to be that burden, or to be perceived as if we’re crying out for attention, like all those on twitter or facebook who often moan and whine about being depressed because maybe they’re going through a breakup, or quite literally just want attention.

The real tragedy in suicide, is when it happens, these people will never know how many people loved and cared for them, for you. You matter and people do care…People do love you even if it’s hard to see, or even feel. Depression is the real enemy, it likes to lie to us and has the tendency to blind us to that fact and more often than not it convinces us that we’re unloved, uncared for, forgotten children of God’s grace. Depression wins by convincing us that we’re burdens when we’re not. Even I, after all this time, knowing this, still struggle with this one little fact.

But every set back, disappointment and heartbreak has the tendency of pushing me slightly closer to the edge or back to where I was. So sometimes I feel myself struggling at the oars to fight and push my darkness my back. But it’s still there even when things are going well, however the better things are going the quieter that little voice in the back of my head becomes and it gets easier to push it back. So I keep trying to pick up the broken pieces of myself and like Humpty Dumpty I attempt to put myself back together again. It’s a long, arduous task and I’ve grown to except that some pieces of myself will never fit, or have gotten lost, or stolen during a very long and unforgiving life. This is because, I still wonder why my mother never loved or accepted me, and I find myself missing the three brothers I never get to see again, none of which will ever see or understand the truth. I never got to see my younger brothers grow up, or to be the older brother I always wanted to be, but I was around them enough to love them with all my heart. I hate the fact I didn’t spend more time with them when I had the chance, I really dug being an older brother.

Being single doesn’t help much either and after a while seeing and hearing about all these happy couples being together tends to sometime wear on my soul, leaving me wonder if I’ll ever find that one person who makes me feel like the sun was something she made for me in a toolshed.

So at nights, when I can’t sleep and I’m alone with my thoughts, I find myself walking a tightrope, wondering what it’s all for and why it is I’m still here.

I don’t own a gun, because sometimes the fight and the struggle becomes too hard even for someone like me, who’s aware of what it is I’m suffering from. It’s the days when I’m beaten down, or when a sad song strikes a particular cord with me, or I watch a warming and touching movie about family like in the movie, “Impossible” knowing I’d never know that feeling of a warm loving family unless I meet someone and start one of my own. Then there are times when I find myself looking through old photographs, or when old memories just hit me out of the blue, like a knockout punch at the beginning of the first round.  

It scares me knowing if I had a gun and what I would do with it on of these bad days. The temptation of a quick and relatively pain free way out would be too much of a temptation for me to use. So I stay away from the variables that may bring me to my end sooner than expected and I remind myself that I’ve always been a survivor and how I may be that one person in a million who somehow survives, but with serious traumatic injury which would only add to more complications and struggle to my little life.

So yeah, sometimes it’s easier to stay silent then speak the truth. But there are three things that can’t remain long hidden, the sun, the moon and the truth. And the truth was created for the people who want to be a better person. Our strong faith and love will us down the right path.

Sorrow, despair, loneliness, suicide, these are the words we don’t mention in public. These feelings we keep firmly locked away, we dare not discuss, though their currents run through all of us in varying ebbs and flows throughout the course of life. Just as hope, passion, happiness and love all run together as well. I believe it doesn’t make us weaker to admit these lulls or frailties as someone once said, “Acceptance is the first step toward happiness.”  Don’t fight the flow, but don’t let it drag you under and hold you down either. 

One last time.

Originally, I was going to post m results for my fit test, but I decided to save that for next week, where I'll also discuss my time down in Louisville for Fandom Fest. But for now, I'll treat you to my short story

"One Last Time"

“This is the last time huh?” I ask, sitting on the corner of the bed, swinging my feet a couple of inches off the floor, as she roots through her closet of old clothes.

"Scratch-" she says my name limply, like she's embarrassed or ashamed by it now. We had grown apart, it’s true, and we barely talk anymore and we play even less. I couldn’t help but feel like I was already being forgotten.

She turns and looks up at me with those sad eyes, ringed in messy eyeliner and a fresh coating of lip-gloss over her mouth.  I think about her a lifetime ago, back when she first discovered make-up in in her mom’s purse and how we laughed as you smeared her eye shadow across your eye lids, and how threw the compact power across the room, making it snow. I tried confessing to the crime and tell them it was me, but they didn’t listen and only you got in trouble.  You cried into your pillow and told me leave you alone, to just go away, but I stayed by your side all night anyway, stroking your hair, and telling you silly stories just to see you smile, to hear you laugh.

"Come on, “ I beg, I’ll play whatever you want, I’ll be the dragon with tiny wings growing out of his back, or be your roommate as we play house, I’ll you be the princess in a big marble castle, chase you around in the falling leaves,  or we can just sit and talk.”

Her phone rings, and she turns aside to flick the glowing screen sideways. It's another message from her school friend.

"Is she nice?" I ask, like a jealous boyfriend.

"Yeah, course she's nice." She replies defensively.

"What all do you do?"

She shrugs.

"I don't know. Talk, I guess."

"You don't play games? Like the dragon and the princess, do you jump in puddles like we used too, or roll around in piles of dead leaves?”

"No..." She mumbles. "She's really not into all of that."

When she'd started going to school I'd sit on her bed, watching out of her window and wait for her school bus to pull up and spill her out. She’d be dragging a bag of books, with her hair all a mess, spilling out stories about her day, her teachers and the friends she made.

I was there when the first boy she ever liked broke her heart and she came and sat next to me crying and I sat with her, telling these kinds of hurts will happen and how it was a good thing. Because it tells her she’s still here, she’s still alive and reminds her that the hurt doesn’t last forever and begin a tickle fight, which I would always win. Some days we'd sit in bed together and play for hours. Sometimes she wouldn't go to school the next day and I'd have her to myself for a whole twenty-four hours.

"Can't we just play one more time?" I ask

She sighs and looks at her phone again.

"Please."

There's a cold feeling in my bones, like the empty space of the room is eating away at me and the only thing keeping it at bay is her eyes. They're fixed on me; smudged eyeliner and the chin jutting out like she used to do when she was smaller and wanted to look braver.

"I have to go."

She stops at the door and looks at me. There's a look in her eye that says she knows it's the last time we're going to see each other.

"I have friends now," she says. "I don't need you anymore."

She leaves and I look at the closed white door and feel the emptiness come rolling in.

"But I do." There is no one left to listen as I fade away and become forgotten in the waves of times, waiting for the day she has a little girl of her own who’ll dream of me too.

Years past and I’m swimming in nothingness, until one day, I open my eyes and I’m back, it feels like waking from a dream, but nothing feels real. Then I look around and see how everything is so different and unrecognizable, but then I see him, the small blond haired boy, sitting all alone in his bed, staring fearfully at his closet door, calling out softly for his mother who can’t hear him.  I follow his gaze, and see the closet door opening slowly inch by inch. I act without thinking, charging at the door and slamming it shut, I’ll always protect him from the monsters that lurk in the dark.

Then I feel his tiny little hand tugging at my coat and I look down, as he asks,

“What’s your name?”

“Scratch,” I say, smiling warmly ruffling his hair and for perhaps the first time I see the resemblance.

“Scratch? My mom used to tell me stories about you.”

I smile and nod, and I say, “Yes, I knew your mother.” Then I take his hand and guide him back to his bed and begin tucking him in, as he asks me to tell him a story, so I take a breath and begin telling him stories his mother and I used tell each other back when she was just a little girl.

Faith in Relationships: The Embers that burn against the night

“Be happy now, without reason - or you never will be at all.” 
― Dan Millman

     Our lights can leave scars upon the surface of the sun

So let no one say we'll be undone by time's passing
For the memories we are amassing will stand as testament
That somehow we bend minds around the concept
that we see others within ourselves.
That self-knowledge can be found on bookshelves
So who we are has no bearing on how we appear
Look directly into every mirror
Realize our reflection is the first sentence to a story
And our story begins here.

            We are here and our stories are being written now, so don’t be discouraged when things fall apart and don’t go your way, sometimes life just takes a little while to come together. So don’t end your story prematurely because happiness seems so far off, like a distant memory that feels more like an illusion that isn’t there, or as far out of reach as we are from touching the nearest star. Trust me; I know it’s hard; I’ve been single now for about a year, having a hell of a time to find that one for me. But I’m not letting my failures get me down, because it took a year of being on my own to decide and to finally realize what it is I want and need. I spent a lifetime chasing after love, romanticizing it, putting every girl I chased up on a pedestal, believing they could never do any wrong. I would rush every relationships as if it were a race and wanted nothing more than to be the first to cross that finishing line.Just to find out that the girl had only meant to be out on a stroll and I would find myself standing alone at what I perceived to be the finishing line.

             I longed so desperately for love, I would fall quickly and easily, even when I barely knew the person I was falling for, or become so blinded by my infatuations I would always fail to see all the many reasons we were wrong for each other and I would never see it until it was too late, because one, or both of us would have already grown emotionally invested with the other, which would always made breaking up all that much harder, because I would still like them as a person, while she would be head over heals in love with me, or vice versa.


           So what do I want? Well, the same thing I think we all essentially want. I want that best friend, who’s also my lover, someone who makes me feel alone even when we're together. To be perfectly content sitting in a room without talking, content with knowing that she is there. To be reading, while she's watching tv, drawing, or writing. Someone who I catch staring at me sometimes, and hear her say,
           “God, I love you.”

If I’ve learned anything from my past relationships its  this, you can’t rush love. You can’t make it happen just because you want it too. Much like a flower, it needs time to grow and it’ll never happen with you hovering and over watering it, trying to will it grow. Because love is something that you both choose and something that just happens and it happens in its own time. So I know what it’s like, to see the finish line and wanting to break into a dead sprint until you’ve reached your destination, but life is a stroll and this how God does things, to teach us and to give us time to grow as human beings, to discover ourselves and what it is we want, need.

       Take my ex-girlfriend for example who since we had broken up, had become a good and trusted friend. But it took a while for us to realize we made better friends then we did lovers.

   I first met Abby on face-book through a mutual friend and at the time she had no clear pictures of herself online, so I was already living dangerously in that regard. But we talked and stalked each other's facebook, for a long time before deciding that we should meet in person by going to a haunted house.

  And I dug her; I dug her as soon as I laid eyes on her.  To me she represented (at the time) my perfect woman, she was short, athletic, bold, feisty and a red haired goddess. (I always had a bit of an weakness when it comes to redheads and short girls, so she was two for two) Naturally I found her to be absolutely drop dead gorgeous and the fact she wasn't a man, didn't have a mustache, a beard, or weigh as much as my car, I was at the same time relieved. But the best thing about her was that she dug me too, in fact her first words to me were,

Our first date, how you can you not fall for someone
like her

“Your pictures do you no justice; you’re much better looking in person.”  And for someone who’s always been a little self-conscious of his appearance, (thanks to every girl who turned me down in High School) this made me feel like I was on top of the world. (You see ladies; it’s a huge turn on when you make the first move, because the best kind of guy will always be a little shy) Better yet, she could barely keep her eyes off me and throughout the night I saw her stealing repeated glances in my direction, which would make my smile widen every time. (Which yeah could have been bad since she was the one driving but at the same time it always feels good to feel attracted to.)

As the night progressed we found ourselves clicking and there were no awkward silences between us, with every lull in conversation leading to us simply enjoying the other’s company. She was fun, goofy, smart, coy, honest and flirtatious. (which only caused my heart to swell all the more with the feelings I already felt for her)

Some part of me could sensed that I was as different for her as she was to me. Because before then I never met anyone so bold, who said whatever she felt without holding anything back. But what I sensed about her is hard to explain, I don't know if it's just me being a writer, or me being intuitive, or something else entirely, but I sensed in her a kindred spirit, I knew she had been hurt numerous times before, used, lied too, objectified, betrayed and broken.

Abby and me on rejoicing in our shared
love affair with Halloween. 

             So by the end of the night, when neither one of us wanted to part ways just yet, I suggested we go to a park near my house, where we played on the swings and the jungle gm like children, laughing all the while as we rejoiced and danced beneath a sea of stars, forgetting our matching scars, and it was then, as I was helping her up from the slide, that I looked into her eyes and saw a purity, a joy and the girl who she thought she lost. There was an innocence about her then, her inner child finally being allowed to come out and play. At the same time I understood this was the first time she ever truly let go, and relished in the moment as it was.

                Later I learn she had a bit of a sordid past. She had a long history of drug abuse and had been an adult film star. I know this, because she insisted on telling me everything before we started dating out of fear I would discover her past and would leave her, breaking her heart. But I come from a place where I believe the past is in the past, while the present is now. We all make mistakes, missteps and do or have done things we've later grown to regret, it's a part of life.  No one really knows what dark corners, or avenues our lives may lead us, but what's important is we find our way out. Also, as a Christian, I believe it’s hypocritical to judge someone for their past, since after all, Jesus Christ had died for our sins and not one of us today can say we live without sin, which is why we pray and ask for forgiveness. (Besides, I don’t think couples should hold one’s past against them. There's nothing you or they can do about it. Besides if can’t get over a person’s past, I believe you really need to ask why it you’re involved with the person that are with.)

  Regardless of her many attempts to test me and push away out of fear I would hurt inevitably hurt her, we eventually began dating “officially” And for a while our relationship was perfect, but every new relationship should be relatively smooth sailing for at least a month or two, as the two of you are still getting to know and impress each other by showing them only the best version of yourself. So if you're having problems at the beginning of a relationship, you should probably bail out while you can.

   For me it took about four months for the cracks to begin to show. When we first met, she didn't like me spending money on her, but as time progressed, she began demanding I spend more and more of my money on her, eventually demanding I take her to a restaurant that was a hundred dollars a plate, which was the point where I had to finally put my foot down and tell her I couldn't afford that kind of lifestyle. Plus, the relationship became less about us and more about her, I was suddenly expected to take her out all the time, pay for all the dinners, entertainment, as well as buying her new clothes, movies, etc. Which again lead to more conflict as I began standing my ground and say no to all frivolous spending and explain that she was making me feel like I was her own personal piggy bank, and I was sinking more and more into debt. Which I was.

        The longer I stayed in the relationship, the more I saw how different and our values were so vastly apart from each others. But still I clung to this image I had of her when we first met, this sweet, funny, clever and sexy girl, who had never been appreciated or treated like a person. I felt like I was fighting a losing battle to this other person who I never knew was there. Yet I had faith that there was this better person beneath it all. Nowadays I'm happy to report she had proved me right, but back then I had blinded myself to all the signs telling me she wasn't the for me, I was too busy putting her up on a pedestal, giving her excuses and overlooking everything I didn't like about her, giving myself excuses for her behavior. Even though being with her was making me more and more miserable.

  One of our major issues was my faith, and she was somewhere in-between being spiritual/agnostic and atheism, she believed my faith was a joke, a crutch. And this was accompanied with her wanting us to be swingers,and to have threesomes, (Yes with another girl, her and me) But both issues were something I couldn’t get behind, which lead to more arguing, and her believing my faith had emotionally and sexually stunted me to the point where I couldn't see how meaningful the experience could be for the both of us. . (Call me a romantic….or an idiot if you want, but I've always been a one woman guy and I can’t share these intimacies with more than one person, despite knowing that most guys would kill to have the opportunity, but it’s just something I can't see myself going through with, my heart rally’s against the very thought, telling me it’s wrong.)

  But this story isn’t all about me, or how bad she was back then, this is a story about how God works. So if that makes you upset, I apologize, it was never my intention to preach at anyone. But I wanted to take a moment to point out something. Despite how wrong we were for each-other, or how unhappy she was making me, I still clung to this relationship as though it was a life line, and letting go meant only certain death. I made myself think and believe I loved her, when in truth every day it felt like I was falling more out of love with her. But it wasn't all her fault, she had suffered from bi-polar disorder, as well as depression. And I should have stood my ground earlier and not let things get out of hand as they did. I should have sat her down and had a calm and rational conversation with her about our relationship and our needs and what we wanted. Maybe we would have worked things out, or maybe parted more amicably and wouldn't have exploded in as many shouting matches, and would have resulted in less hurt feelings.

You see, many people jump into relationships and like many of us do begin to run, and race to that ultimate goal of marriage before we even know if that person is right for us or not. Maybe, that person is just a stepping stone, a guiding light, taking you one step closer to the person you're suppose to be with. You see, this is what I believe, I believe it's all a journey and it teaches us and we carry something with us out of every failed relationship, which helps to shape and mold us into better people. Sometimes we need be schooled and hurt in love, so that when it really does come for real, we can appreciate it even more, because we've learned from past mistakes and grew as individuals. Which is probably why I remained good friends and have managed to maintain friendships with many of my Exes. Of course, don't try to savage a friendship right away, we all need time to heal and recover. For me this usually takes about six moths.

And if you can rekindle or even start a friendship it's amazing, I've witnessed this incredible change in Abby, who was once selfish, arrogant, greedy, a gold digger and incredibly vain, (to the extent whenever I was driving she had to keep my vanity mirror down so she could keep checking herself out) And had grown addicted to her computer, phone and facebook, to the extent she couldn't have a conversation with you without posting about it, or looking at her phone.

But now, this girl who I never expected to find meaning, or God, has found just that. She's been saved, and regularly attends church, she went from someone who only thought about herself, to this amazing girl who now goes out of her way to help someone in need. It's like this shadow has been lifted from her eyes and a weight from her shoulders and I can tell you, she's finally free, she's happy and a joy to be around. She's even met a good Christian Guy and now dreams and prays for the day where he proposes to her and they get married. (Back when I was with her, she was opposed to marriage with every fiber of her being)
 And I'm extremely happy for her and proud, as well as blessed for having witness her incredible transformation, for being able to call her my friend. I never expecting to see God work in such a way. Which makes me sit back and with a smile as I think back on the day when we first met in what feels like so very long ago and having the honor of being the witness to it all.

Abby and her boyfriend Evan,
I haven't met him yet,
but they look like an absolutely
couple. I couldn't be happier for her.

We never could get it to work her and I, and back then, it felt like I was walking through a life sucking mine field of psychological barbwire, day after day,until there was nothing left of me but a dried up human husk of the person I used to be.

But we've all done it, got involved with someone we shouldn't who was just all wrong for us and stayed too long. Even worse is when we stay in horrible, life draining, enjoyment killing relationships for the worse reasons, and even worse excuses.
being miserable in relationships we know are going nowhere. Some stay out of habit, or fear that they might have to go out of it alone for awhile. I've done it too, I've ignored, or excused all the red flags and signs telling me I should really reconsider the relationship I was in.

But either out of fear, or some perverse sense of loylaty we stay, and blindly trudge ever forward, no matter how bad or trying the relationship gets. It doesn't matter how many times that person drags you down, leaving you feeling frayed, as you cling ever tighter these bad relationships, that only drag us further down into this sea of regret, all the while believing this other person is our life preserver.

The worse part of it is this; it's us who cling and hold on so tightly. When all we have to do is let go. It took me awhile to let go of Abby, fighting the urge to call or text her just to see how she was doing, to hear her voice. But I knew we both needed time apart, time to grow and learn. So I know it's hard, but I think sometimes we all need to stop making excuses and just walk away. Maybe you're right for each other, but you're not right for each other right now, maybe you're just meant to be friends, or simply serve as a lesson in the school of life. I always tell my friends if they're unhappy in their relationship they should take a step back, take a break, or break up. Life is too short to waste time being unhappy with someone who's just wrong for you, or who just drags you down. Yeah it's going to be hard, yeah they'll be tears, begging for another chance and promises of change. But none of it will ever be enough unless the both of you take some time apart and grow.

I began writing this after a long conversation I had with a friend, whom I asked if she was really in love with this person, or if she was in love with the idea of them, the idea of love and the prospect of a wedding? these are questions we all have to ask ourselves at some point in our lives. 

Look at Abby and myself, once upon a time we were head over heels in love, and we were that annoying lovey-dovey couple who could never take our lives off each other and couldn't stop flirting and touching, making everyone think we'd end up married. But we kinda fell apart, I couldn't be the guy she wanted, and she couldn't be the girl I wanted. Because we both wanted and needed something else, something more. If we would have stayed together, we probably would have ended up killing each-other, or just making each-other miserable for the rest of our lives.

But thankfully, we've both changed and because of that, she's became an awesome person, an amazing friend and I wouldn't trade the memories, good or bad for the world. Because she taught me a lot without ever realizing it. She taught me that I should really get to know someone before getting into a relationship with them and she taught me that I should and how to stand my ground, how to say no, as well as how to have confidence.

You see, they say people change, but they never say how much, how much have you changed during the course of your life?

Sometimes we get lonely, and desperate for love, we look for it in all the wrong places. We make poor choices and relationship mistakes, because we’re trying to run, instead of taking the time to walk with that person and getting to know them, letting the love we feel flow through us naturally and grow on its own time.

         

How do you put it into words?

How do you put it into words?

“There is something beautiful about a billion stars held steady by a God who knows what He is doing. (They hang there, the stars, like notes on a page of music, free-form verse, and silent mysteries swirling in the blue like jazz.) And as I lay there, it occurred to me that God is up there somewhere. Of course, I had always known He was, but this time I felt it, I realized it, the way a person realizes they are hungry or thirsty. The knowledge of God seeped out of my brain and into my heart. I imagined Him looking down on this earth, half angry because His beloved mankind had cheated on Him, had committed adultery, and yet hopelessly in love with her, drunk with love for her-Donald Miller Blue like Jazz

My mother and me.

         I’d like to begin with a confession, which is. I still think about her sometimes, I try not to, I mean, everyone tells me I shouldn’t, but some days I can’t really help myself. She seeps into my brain like a fog, spreading out, covering my brain like morning dew. She was after all a huge part of my life for such a long time. It’s hard to forget and harder still not to think about her and the memories we shared. There were moments when I felt we were finally growing close and understanding each other. She was my mother, and it’s been over six years since I’ve last seen or spoke to her, five years of wondering if she ever thinks of me and wondering if the few kindnesses she showed me were ever real, or just a simple charade. I wonder if she ever loved me, or hated me from the very beginning. I wonder if she started out hating me and would have periods where she genuinely cared and loved me, but for some reason chose to continually shove those feelings aside. Leaving me wondering the more important question which is why and just how much of it was a lie and what moments were real, genuine. 

            

             I was introduced to God at a fairly young age and fell in love with the notion, of this being who a father of us all, who watched us from up above. I listened to all the stories, prayed all the time and would often speak to God as I would a friend. Of course many adults had always assumed I was speaking to an imaginary friend and any atheist would say that they weren’t wrong. But in many ways I believed and at times I believed I was raised in a broken home, with a mother who rarely ever made me feel love was because I was being tested. I can’t tell you how many times I prayed for my mother’s love, or when I stopped praying for her love, but for an end of my misery. It wasn’t just my mom, but having to go school and face the bullies, then suffering the scrutiny of bad teachers. (A few of my teachers would actually participate and laugh as my bullies mocked, ridiculed and shoved me around) But I never really told anyone until I started writing this blog, because I always felt like it would make me more of a victim, it would make me less of a person and I somehow would just bring about more ridicule.

          

                 I was also born with a few flaws very early on, I had warts, bad eyes, buck teeth, a speech impediment and I was born painfully shy. I wasn’t particularly talented like my brother who could draw and created amazing works of art, nor did I have his charm and charisma. I often tried to be funny, tried to be artistic, brilliant and athletic. But none of it really stuck, I was simply me and I had a short attention span and a wild imagination, along with very deep introspective nature. So if anyone had a reason not to believe or to hate God it was me. I lived with an abusive mother, was bullied in school, had only a small handful of friends, but I still felt alone, like I had no place to turn, nowhere to go. My mother had fed into my social anxiety and depression by telling me things like just because my father enjoyed doing things with me, it didn’t mean he loved me. She told me it was all just for show, an act so I would choose to live with him once I became of age. Telling me everyone was always talking about me behind my back, laughing at me, etc. 

         

Despite our differences now, my older brother Dominic
really helped pull me edge of the abyss I found myself
teetering on the precipice of. But that was before our
bond was broken my lies and deceit. But I still love him.  

  

            So it’s not surprising that I eventually lost my faith. I couldn’t fathom why God, or any God would put so much on one person at such an early age. My whole life felt like a never ending uphill battle, with no end in sight and I felt like every time I made it over one hurdle, I instantly got beaten over the head with it, until I got over two more. I eventually grew tired of it all, tired of being a nice guy, tired of loving a God who showed me so precious little, tired of my prayers going unanswered, of being afraid of going to school and living in terror of going home.

            Then I had questions, questions every child of faith has; I wondered if God made everything, who or what made him?  It took me a couple of years but I think I finally have it figured out.

            You see, I’ve come full circle and I’ve become a born again Christian and I have proof that God is alive, well for me at least and here it is.

          There are on average 4.4 million confirmed pregnancies in the U.S. every year. 900,000 to one million of those pregnancies end in miscarriages. 500,000 pregnancies each year end in miscarriage. So my proof is this, I’m still here. Both my mother and father confirmed that my mother had on numerous occasions tried having a miscarriage. Doing everything from binge smoking, to throwing herself down a flight of steps on her stomach, to punching and beating her gut and doing everything she could to terminate me while I was unborn and still in the womb. On top of that, I was an ‘accident’ both my parents had given up on having another child, a year later she became pregnant with me. Later, when I was just a few months old, my mother took my older brother and abandoned me, leaving me sleeping at the top of a flight of stairs as she locked up the house and left me there. During this time my mother and father’s marriage was on the rocks and he had been staying at my grandmothers, but God had spoken to him, demanding that he return home. That’s where my father found me, still asleep at the top of the stairs. Even if you don’t believe in God, it’s a small miracle within itself that my father showed up at the house at all. Because if he hadn’t, I highly doubt I would be there today, since it took about a week for my mother to call my father and ask him if he had me. 

           

My grandmother, by far the best and greatest person
I have ever known and the toughest. She was
in all honesty, the closest thing I had to a
a real mother.

I survived all this, including my own suicide attempt. I lost my faith in everything and struggled with my faith time and again, sometimes I simply gave up and surrendered my faith, and there were times when I felt forgotten by him and raged a war, I sinned, cut myself, challenged others in their faith, alljust to get his notice, because even if I made him angry, or hate me he wouldn’t be able to ignore me, believing at least then he’d have no other choice but to take notice of me. All the while I was just drowning in a sea of sorrow, loneliness and despair.

I was eventually saved however.

I was saved by her And despite our
Differences she was one of the
best friends I ever had.

For a long time I overlooked the positives in my life, and only focused on the negatives and the truth is, sorrow, despair, loneliness, and suicide are words we don’t mention in public. These feelings we keep firmly locked away, we dare not discuss, through their currents run through all of us in varying ebbs and flows throughout the course of life. Just as hope, passion, happiness and love all run together as well. I believe it doesn’t make us weaker to admit these lulls. As someone once said “Acceptance is the first step towards happiness.” Don’t fight the flow, but at the same time don’t let it drag you down either because it’ll hold you there if you let it. 

And by this guy, my best friend since
HighSchool.

     

So when you leap off that metaphorical bridge, when you’ve hit bottom and feel like you’ve reached the darkest depths of your inner ocean, just remember to keep kicking for the light at the surface. Or better yet don’t jump at all, just learn to swim.

 

His loving family who became a part of my
extended family, for they went above
and beyond making feel as such.

           Because we all have problems and we all get knocked down sometimes, it happens. But here’s my opinion, we’re all given these hardships, these trials and tribulations, in order to build us up, to make us stronger and to have empathy for our fellows. Because life is not all sunshine and rainbows, it’s in constant flux, a pendulum swinging wildly through the many shades of human emotion. And it is important to remember that sometimes the greatest inspiration comes from the moments of deep despair. Even Martin Luther King Jr. Once said, “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”

Then there's my dear friend Hannah
with her rich heart, sweet nature
who shares my affinity for the
outdoors.

I was saved by a few kinds words, random acts of kindness and love, I found grace and solace in a moment, I was even saved from my own selfish suicidal attempts, which by all rights should have killed me. But I was given another chance at life; I was given a chance at this random, chaotic thing called life. This is how God works, it may not always be how you wanted and you may never really understand it, just like how I’ll probably never understand my mother, but I’m okay with that. So you should be okay with you.
And when people feel the need to challenge my faith, I tell them to look at life. There’s nothing more spectacular than it. Imagine all the circumstances that had to occur that resulted in your birth, thus creating the perfect storm that is you. But not only was it you that was born into this life. Think about it, in each human coupling, a thousand million sperm vie for a single egg. Now multiply those odds by countless generations, against the odds of your ancestors being alive, meeting, siring this precise son, that exact daughter and of that union, of the thousand million children competing for fertilization, it was you, only you that emerged. To distill so specific a form from that chaos of improbability, like turning air to gold. Then there's this planet, placed exactly here in this place, allowing the perfect climate to sustain intelligent life and if people can't see how this is a miracle within itself, created by an expert craftsman, how can you not believe in something greater than yourself? Why doubt the existence of God? Other than believing that the earth wasn't made, believing that perhaps nothing is made. Like A clock without a craftsman.

This guy also helped pull me back
from the edge, my cousin and good friend Nick.

My faith will never be a struggle of intellect. I don’t really waiver in my beliefs as I had once had. I don’t care if your Bill Nye, I long since figured out there are some people who don’t believe in God and will always go through great lengths to prove He doesn't exist, and there are some, like myself who do believe in God and can prove He exists, the argument stopped being about God a long time ago and now it’s about who is smarter, and honestly I don’t care. I know what I know, my experiences are purely my own and no one can take those things away from me. That being said, yes I am a Christian and I do believe many of fellows have forsaken themselves lost the meaning in all their preaching.

I for one stand for equality and don’t believe anyone has the right to infringe on someone else’s pursuit of happiness. Being against same sex marriage to me, is like going to a restaurant and getting upset because someone else is ordering something different than yours. It’s long been my opinion that if 

Then there's my father, who was always there for me.
Words cannot express the love & the admiration I have
for this man. Who never gave up on me
and even though we don't always see eye to eye
He's still the greatest man I ever met.

something offends you pay it no mind, don’t waste time or energy getting upset about it. No one’s asking you to come to their wedding, or telling you that you need to marry someone of the same sex
Secondly I don’t homosexuality is a choice and I still love those who are among my friends and family who are gay, in fact it's hard for me to even put labels on who they are, because all I see is friends, and family. I don't really care about their sexual orientation, or how their beliefs differ from my own. I simply see good people.  But still I admire their strength, because I know a little of the hardships and the prejudices they have to face and come to terms with when they come out.

Leviticus 19:18 you shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD.

There's also Harley, we started off as enemies,
and we couldn't stand each other, but he became
good friends, and Harley even went well
out of his way once to pull my butt out
a fire.

  Leviticus 19:34 You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.

Peter 5:14 Greet one another with a kiss of love. Peace be to you all who are in Christ.

Love is the key, and believing in something, believing in God, having conviction is to falling falling is love, as to making a decision. Love is both something that just happens and something you decide upon.