Journal of Life

The darkness doesn’t have any answers. I know this. Yet, when I’m faced with emotions I cannot contain, my first instinct is to withdraw. I pull a dark shade over my thoughts and surroundings to hide the pain inside. I hide my vulnerability.

I grew up believing that it was embarrassing to be vulnerable. True strength had no holes. A person worthy of respect was a superhero. Impenetrable. Invulnerable.

I tried to hide it. I tried so hard. I lied and deceived myself, and everyone else, somewhat unsuccessfully into believing that I was stronger than I was. That I am less vulnerable than I am. Possibly the biggest mistake I ever made. Am still making.

The darkness only grew. It began to consume more and more of my life. School. Friendships. Family. Conversations. Eventually, it got so big that there was nowhere left to hide. I was the darkness. I cried in the darkness.

You have to let go of this dark weight you’re carrying around. It’s a very romantic notion that all the garbage and pain is actually healing, beautiful and poetic. It’s not. It’s just garbage and it’s pain.

The strongest are those who are willing to be vulnerable. To put their thoughts and feelings, fears and emotions into words and out into the world. Those who are willing to be themselves. Those who are comfortable with themselves. Those who trust themselves.

We’ve been taught since we were young that there are two ways to react to a change in our environment. To fight it, or to escape it. Fight or Flight. The idea came from observing animals in nature. When a grizzly bear encounters a human, it makes a snap decision. Will I risk losing it all by standing my ground and fighting? Or, will I live to see another day by avoiding the battle? Have I really saved myself by running? Does asking myself whether to stay or run predispose me to a loss no matter what decision I make?

For the bear, this decision is instinctual. But, even if it weren’t, the bear would fight his heart out. To his bitter end. Once he engaged, he would forget that he had the option of escaping. He would never accept second best. He would never fight scared of loss. Scared that he made the wrong decision.

As I read my thoughts, I introduce fear into every situation before I even start. What if this isn’t the right place for me to be? What if this isn’t the right decision? What if I made a mistake? By questioning and re-analyzing the decision, I can’t win. No matter what decision it was. I can no longer fully dedicate myself to succeeding in my new post-decision reality. The battle intimidates me. I could have easily run, but didn’t. I could still run, but I’m waiting for a sign. I don’t want to lose, but escape is better than a loss. Or, is it?

We all have an ideal. That person we want to be. The person we are, somewhere deep inside. The ideal we want to live up to. It could be a person we know and love. It might be a fictional character from television, a movie, or a dream. It might just be a belief in the goodness in all of us. Our ideal is the person we think of when we’re trying to make a tough decision, and we say What would Lucas do in this situation?

But, sometimes we get led away from that person. We forget to double check our decisions. We lose sight of the person we once were and the life we once wanted. We may be led by the actions of another. A sudden event in our life may push us. We might begin a steep fall down a slippery slope of bad decisions without even knowing it. Before you know it, you’ve moved so far away from your ideal that the person you were before becomes your new dream. At least she hadn’t made so many bad decisions. Or did she?

All we ever wanted was to fill our dream, our ideal. But, now it seems so bleak. It’s drifting away, into a deep dark grayscale abyss. We’ve dug a hole so deep that it seems impossible to reach back up to the place where we once were. Let alone rise above it.

How does this happen? How do we become someone we know we’re not? It scares me just thinking about it. Living to see it realized is unspeakably difficult. A better question to ask might be, What can we do? We all know that choosing the right path is never easy. It’s an accumulation of every decision you’ve ever made, and every decision you didn’t make. The future holds infinite possibilities for us, but probability says that at least as many of those paths are fulfilling, as they are disappointing. It might be the saddest despair for a man to look back on what once was, or what could never be. I can’t tell you what the right path, or the path to fulfillment might be, but I can tell you it doesn’t lead to despair.

Metaphor. This entry is all about metaphor.

After an 18 month hiatus, I am reviving this blog. Those eighteen months were packed with more lessons than I care to highlight now. Instead, I will answer a few simple questions, and save the juicy details for the future. I love anticipation!

Why did I stop writing so many months ago? As we all know life happens altogether too quick to fully comprehend it in that moment. Or at least, the last year and half as felt that way. I became way to enamored with my life and myself to bother writing. There was no point. My life was perfect. I couldn’t bring myself to honestly reflect on my new life. I chose to ignore and live in blissful ignorance. Despite the castle walls that were crumbling around me.

Which brings me to why I’m breathing (or typing!) life back into my unfinished journal. As all good things do, my life and identity as I knew it, came to an abrupt end. In a combination of experiences that still make me emotional, I lost everything I thought I had. So, cracking open this journal is also a coming of age for the author. I’ve come to realize how important this forum really is to me, my life and my growth. I will breathe life forever more.

As a final metaphorical irony, this post is being published on 9/11 (2008). I still remember where I was that day, six years ago. And, I’m still here.