I know the answer is no.

During happier times this year – for me at least – we talked about it, and I was so excited.

Spending Christmas with mom and dad every year is nothing but happiness. Nothing but love. Kindness. And yeah, amazing food.

A lot has changed since July. The way you felt about me. The way I felt about you. And I know that given the current circumstances it’s probably impossible.

If you want to visit this Christmas, I would love to have you. No strings. No “feelings”. Just us sharing our holiday with you.

It would be no trouble; you have my word on that.

I just wanted you to know.

🌷

Ripples? Do you see any?

Never been broken that bad. 🤔 Something to give thanks about.

The Storm is weakening…

Figured it would in time.

You’re not sure what it means. You’re not any wiser, sadly. If there was a lesson hopefully you learned it and it didn’t escape you in the night. Only one way to find out though.

…In time. 🤔

For now, keep the hatches battened. You’re pulling as hard as you can. And you get one wish at least; you’re still here in the midst of chaos.

Battered, but not brutally broken. So what kind of love do you deserve?

None. You deserve nothing. No one “deserves” anything. Thank goodness we don’t get what we deserve, lolz 😂

Why would you deserve anything? What did you do? Cure cancer? Give someone a kidney? Save a kid in a burning building? The things you do that benefit the world around you, you get paid for.

The nice things you do for friends are rewarded by friends doing nice things for you.

Why would you deserve more? You have been given so much. You feel it’s the right thing to do to give to others because of it. Do you deserve more for that? Lol no, of course not! Otherwise don’t help and call it a wash. 🤣

What about bad things? You’ve done bad and stupid things – everyone has. What do you deserve because of them?

Well… the consequences, right? What else? Do you deserve to have the right to just do them and not face consequences? You guess maybe if you did more good things… you know maybe give more to charity… mentor disadvantaged youth… try to be more generous with what little time and money you have… spend less time alone, wishing you were with someone you love…

Interesting…

Maybe that’s why.… 🤔

Trust in God. If there is any benefit to others from you being in this world it is because of him. If not… well, idiot you’re not doing it right… 🤣

Get well soon, Atreyu. It starts again in the morning…

Strength

Not sure whether or not to be concerned. Your past really wasn’t tough. Sure seemed tough at the time and it was not all smooth sailing…

… but now that you’re older, you realize that any strength that you have has come from learning from people wiser than you… and trying to put things into perspective.

Or… maybe you’re just not a strong person. You don’t particularly care to think that but just be aware that you might not be able to handle some things as well as you think you can.

Being strong doesn’t mean not having to deal with fear, project confidence, be a jerk, or having to act the badass, lolz…

And there’s all kinds of different strength out there. For various situations and various kinds of people.

Too often we get so wrapped around the idea of being strong that we forget to actually be strong.

Like weight lifters that don’t care about the shoulders because stronger shoulder muscles aren’t as noticeable. Looking strong doesn’t mean being strong.

Dunno. Odd that you like the expression of the picture, but have to then immediately address whether or not it applies to you.

Self reflection and introspection is always helpful though. Grounding. And oddly enough, even peaceful.

Perhaps sometimes it takes strength to admit to weakness… 🤔

Pretending

You have as much patience as you do Adderall in your brain. And it’s always going to be different when it’s someone else’s kid. It’ll be more fun; less serious, and less consequential.

Certainly not anywhere close to the headaches that you want.

But at the end of the day, you so want them.

You so want that stress. You want that pressure. You want that responsibility.

You freaking idiot. You have absolutely no idea the depth of understanding that you don’t even have on the subject.

But in that there is a certain level of comfort because no one has a clue when they first start down that road either.

There was absolutely nothing that had any meaning beyond just chillaxing and playing checkers with the little one.

But for a good hour or so, you got to pretend. Pretend you were a dad. The checkers/chess/8 other game box set. You had forgotten about it until you went through your room looking for stuff you could bring out to entertain her with, and you found… *that* play set. You managed to forget you still had it.

December 2013. You had finally found a church that didn’t piss you off, found a good Bible study group, and they were doing toys for tots for Christmas. Fresh into the new church you were gung ho about jumping in with both legs. Went to target looking for toys. Saw the Checkers box set, put it in the buggy, decided to keep looking. Picked up apples to apples as well. Some other thing you saw and the ages listed. One was for kids up to age 11. Eleven.

All of a sudden hit you that yours would’ve been 11. You always felt like you would have had a little girl. Such a promising trip to Target instantly ruined. You just took the two games to the register and left. Didn’t even deliver them. Nonsensical across the board.

What others think doesn’t make a dent in that pain. But thank God that pain you’ve suffered from for years and years has finally begun to heal.

That made pretending so much easier.

You really enjoyed it.

It gave you a headache…

… but it’s not one you minded, wanting to share a moment trying to add value to the life of a little one.

You had no idea how deep that wound was. And now, sometime soon… you never will! Lolz

Good nights sleep inbound….. 🙂🙂🙂

Irony

So many fascinating aspects to the world, order and chaos; placidity and turbulence; fire and water. Everyone who was ever born has run some gamut between gregariousness and despondency. Levels of duality are normal when it comes to the slightly higher form of consciousness human beings possess above other mammals cobbled together after over 200,000 years thanks to enlarged brains from various factors like the discovery of cooking, which scientists believed was foundational to cognitive development, functioning as a ‘pre-stomach’, freeing internal body processes up for slightly enlarged organs – including the brain.

There is a difference between the mind and the brain. Well, a difference and not. Consciousness, emotion, higher forms of thought… are both more than the sum of the parts of the wrinkled fleshy material between the ears and the various chemicals sloshing around within it… and wholly comprised by them. And we meet our friend duality once more.

It’s a part of life for all of us…for some the cycle is mere ebb and flow, and for others could be described in terms of torrential positive and negative G forces. Through science, slowly but surely, tiny pieces of the puzzle of our reality seem to be revealed to us, courtesy of our developing intelligence and blossoming curiosity. We slowly begin – well, believe we begin – to understand both the brain and the mind to the point where we are able to soothe various ailments… of mind and body.

She isn’t the crazy one. You are.

The chemicals sloshing around in your modest gray matter bear certification of chronic depression, anger complex, attention deficit disorder, and something else that you’re forgetting right this second. You thought you had it bad until you recently found out one of your jackass grandfathers was a paranoid schizophrenic. And instantaneously some perspective was in order.

She feels she’s dangerous. Prone to hurting others. Her own words were: “neurotocisms, anxiety and depression, rage, sunstance abuse, and a dash of narcisism”.

And…. truth is…. she ain’t wrong. No one – no one – has ever sliced as deep. Never have you come anywhere near so close to a swirling vortex of energy, emotion, and passion like the Crow.

But that’s… not crazy. What’s crazy is how early and easily you sensed that realizing it. And that’s when the third and least understood part of being – the spirit – charged into the maelstrom dragging the rest of you with it.

You knew. You never told her just how early you knew she would mash you to pieces. How did you know? Looking at the drunken letter you never showed her that you wrote to yourself when her marriage ended… wow. You actually did know. Have all along.

Wasn’t much of a letter, you guess. Incoherent, misspelled, and you didn’t even really end it. Added in some guilt from hurting someone else because you’d do almost anything for the Crow that you would never do for her.

Actually humorous in retrospect, lolz 😂

So why are you the crazy one? Well you’re not one to simply put up with being abused, but at the same time with her… it’s different.

You are protective of her, in ways you have never understood. You feel her suffering and you instantly want to heal her. Or be a slow, yet torrential tide of a Placid Lake to engulf her in your embrace when her wild fire gets out of control.

You feel the anger in the range of the firestorm, and… you… *want* to be the one who endures it, because you… actually can – because you know when it’s her and when it’s not her. You can even sense it when you are attuned to her.

You are a born caregiver in some ways, in spirit if not effectiveness. When it comes to her, though… There’s a level of protectiveness that transcends virtually every lesson you have ever learned – but even still, it… makes sense to you.

You simply won’t go away. You can actually handle the slings and arrows from her that might slaughter you if cast upon you by another. And at this point in the development of your feelings, what burns the brightest within you is to see her soothed. Healed. Happy.

And yet… not significantly “changed”. You love her passion. Her Realness. Her desire. You wouldn’t change who she was in a million years in any way other than to soothe her rage; to bring calm to her when her world churns too hard; to bring peace to her when she when sadness tries to devour her.

You honestly feel… more and more… like you were put on this planet… just to be a stabilizing force in her life… just as if you yourself needed some healthy destabilization, lest you get stuck in the rut of your feared Ennui.

And if this is somehow so, what terrifies you the most… is the feeling that your purpose in life has already been failed… because she rejected you.

And yet here you are… the meaning of your life in danger when hers is placed in danger.

You will never not be in love with her in some way. It’s crazy because the new heart… is hers too… it’s just bigger. To incorporate armor. As if the pain was to temper the steel; to forge it into what can handle anything she throws at you with the smile, calm, and peaceful temperament that you can only be if you were a better man – what you desperately strive to be anyway.

And though you are biased… you just might perceive a tiny bit of the scaffolding of His Plan.

But if you have already blown your chance… you still have a job to do.

Make her laugh. Smile. Encourage her every turn to follow her dreams. To calm the fire in her heart when it begins to boil over. Be her “officer” in whatever way she will have you.

Be what God would have you be in her life.

And you have too much joy in yours to keep it all to yourself… 😊

Irony. Misery loves company. Just as much as Happiness does. 🤔

Duality.

Interesting… 🤔🤔🤔

Sinking

The Damage is done. That ship is going to sink. Not tonight. Not tomorrow. But soon.

It’s not because of you. The iceberg was struck long ago. Grinding into thin metal meant for happy times and joyfulness; not armored for battle.

Realize what you are encouraging… and what you’re not.

Her mind is made up. Has been for years.

You’re still pissed. You just haven’t wallowed in it. since Monday. First step in getting past it.

Well, get past it faster.

You were not meant to be with a treasured wife or have children. Feel it. Admit it. Know it. If you’re wrong, that’d be great. But now’s not the time.

Give her no impression other than what she needs from you.

Be wise enough to be what God wants you to be for her. Feel bad that they struck the iceberg.

It’s. Not. On. You.

Be the example you wish to set.

Be True.

Carry on.