Calm Before the Storm

One is on the way. You can feel it on the wind. Part of you is glad. You have survived every one and this one will be no different. You are in the trenches, but they are better than the doldrums now aren’t they?

Some confidence is actually appropriate; you’re able to not be bitter. Sure wasn’t easy. Won’t be. At this point likely ever. Maybe that’s why you’re looking forward to the storm. When you’re so tired of your struggles you look forward to different ones.

Ditch Facebook. Enough. As it is, watching that endless cycle is just insulting and hurting you. Batten down the hatches. Start fortifying LinkedIn again. Who knows… Compartmentalize. What comes out on the other side of the squall will be stronger, if even by a minuscule amount.

May Wisdom lead you – though please not home yet. There’s still too much confusion. Winds blowing in four directions at once and these sails are tattered. These waters aren’t home, but you came out here for a reason… And you’re not scared of them anymore.

Bring the storm. Wish it all upon yourself and yourself alone. And once you’re through it… you’ll finally have clear skies.

To what end? Only God knows. But that’s fine. He’s a better sailor than you’ll ever be. You’ll be fine.

Not soon. But soon enough…

Bring it. Insomnia for something new… and you’re finally wise enough to find it invigorating.

You called it almost 3 years ago, but you didn’t listen to yourself. That’s why she was put in your life. Chaos isn’t the enemy you thought it was.

Chaos is possibility. Chaos is opportunity. Chaos is energy.

If you aren’t careful it will blow up in your face. You can’t control it. But you can choose to navigate through it without trepidation instead of avoiding it.

In the calm before the storm, the skies are clear. You see more clearly now than you have in a long time. That will change when the storms arrive.

But now… you have finally learned Time Squared. Even you don’t get how you’re so optimistic. Even here. Even now. You wouldn’t be if you were truly on your own.

Wintersun’s guitar begins to swirl the waters around the cove. The wind feels soothing and cool.

20 years ago today, your first heart was breaking wide open. Then into pieces, and lost to the sea.

But that was a different time. And never again will you be afraid of a storm…in May.

1995

https://youtu.be/X9ukSm5gmKk

Windows 95, you’re long gone but I’m still alive
I’ve gone so far, not even knowing how
I suppose the world is so much smaller now
The plans that you made,
when you still had the time
I’ve saved all the things
that you left behind
but by now I guess I’d consider them all mine
Windows 95,
is only a metaphor for what I feel inside
Although I’m older now,
there’s still an emptiness
that’s never letting go somehow
Have you ever walked into what seemed,
to be somebody else’s dream?
And though the time won’t let you pass,
it keeps you looking through the glass
1995,
they call the year the future was to arrive
But back in ’95
we thought we were standing on the threshold
to the end of time
(And we still do)
So what’s wrong with living in the past?
It just happens to be the place I saw you last
And what’s wrong with living in a dream?
That one day the echo answers,
deep inside of me
I’ll remember 1995
I’ll remember 1995
(music and lyrics by Molly Nilsson)

April 23

Not much does. 

Words can’t describe how much it is. In fairness, it’s been asked to do more than it has in years, and gone so much farther than it ever has before.

Maybe this is exercise. Just the warm-up for a new chapter of life  but it’s needed to stretch and work out to prepare for.

Maybe this is it way of saying it wasn’t meant for what you’re asking of it.

So….what are your priorities?  What are you doing out here?  Here be dragons, after all, and you have weathered many, many storms. 

What are your priorities? Do they really matter? And if they do, who do they matter to? If they matter to others, what are their priorities?

If you look long enough, you can tell.

So now…to Scylla or Charybdis? Is that where we’ve journeyed? This far out?  Did Wisdom lead us here? Probably not, but she can get us home

 …if it’s time. 

…when it’s time. 

The Intersection of Courage and Wisdom

! Eagle Snake

“The Eagle does not fight the snake on the ground.

It picks it up into the sky and changes the battle ground, and then it releases the snake into the sky.

The snake has no stamina, no power and no balance in the air. It is useless, weak and vulnerable unlike on the ground where it is powerful wise and deadly.

Take your fight into the spiritual realm by praying and when you are in the spiritual realm God takes over your battles.

Don’t fight the enemy in his comfort zone, change the battle grounds like the Eagle and let God take charge through your earnest prayer.

You’ll be assured of clean victory.”

(Christian Proverb) 

It’s tough most times. It really is. Especially when you want to grab your problems by the throat and solve them until they beg for mercy. Feels even counter-intuitive not to shoulder our burdens alone. But we aren’t alone, and we never will be. 

I’ve fought my own way. My own rules. Seeking my own victory.  Finding my own glorious…failure. Arrogance was my enemies’ greatest weapon.

Now? I don’t need to have things my way. I’d rather win. That means fighting them where they are weak but we are strong.

Bring it, ya rat bastards. 🙂

 

 

 

 

Actions speak louder than words

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Actions speak louder than words.

He’s a liar. Selfish. Manipulative. Emotionally Abusive. Drives her to panic attacks. 

You’re honest. Generous. Compassionate. Endlessly encouraging. Desire nothing more than to make her happy.

For him, it was never. Then years. Then months. Then she wouldn’t even wait a month; letting him back in just before you flew to see her.

For you, it was May. Then July. Then September. Well…”thinking September” for now.

You know how much that hurts. It’s not enough to reject you. It’s a rejection of what you are and stand for, in favor of everything you aren’t and stand against.

Now he’s lied to her for nine straight days. Zero real consequences. In other words, she’s gotten used to it. And no matter what she says – at the end of the day, she’s fine with it.

She’s not even going to confide in you about him hurting her anymore.

Actions speak louder than words.

Her actions speak volumes – and it kills you to finally realize it.

So what now?

Be Confident, Atreyu.

Be Confident.

As long as you can.

She is still sacred to you. 

Her happiness is worth it.

The Sky is the Limit

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Five Hour Energy. Admin meeting. Pros list with no cons list. Outlook. Remote print management software. Inventory barcodes. Pulling from stock. Returning to stock. Page count resets. Itemizing and shipping defective items. Entering new devices. Run monthly and quarterly billing reports and email invoices. Updating the parts arrival board. Pulling and organizing stock. Status updates on outsourced calls. Status undated on calls over three days old. Entering service calls. Email mailbox rules. Researching invoice numbers for misplaced items. Five Hour Energy. Excel. Filter MPS Calls. Service Hold. Loaners. Call is less than three days old per SLA. ASAP deliveries. Pull afternoon stock. Examine procedure notes and prepare three business day old calls to add to assigned ticket priority list for tomorrow.

I’d rather build a flower shop. 

The Dream

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It’s devastating when it’s this way for one but not the other. Especially when there is indeed something in both hearts.

Am I not enough? Would I not make her happy?  What can I do?  How could she prefer Pain to me?  Especially when I know there is something there?

Would  someone else build her what I would?  Hold her the way I would?  Give her what I would? Share the adventure of my life with her the way I would?

If someone else was here and I was there,  I wouldn’t be hurting tonight.  Or ever again.

And yet that beautiful rose will curl up tonight with  sheep determined to consume her no matter how much her thorns scar him.

If I’m not enough…  it will be hard, but I could live with it. But watching her suffer… I just can’t bear it much longer.

The stress wounds her and drives her  deeper into the very abyss she is trying to crawl out of.  She knows it’s hurting her.  She knows where the pain comes from.

She just won’t stop the bleeding.  Ever increasing drink and green to ease the pain. And now an introduction to white.

I’m terrified.

I’m terrified that she is leaping into the fire she is trying to save herself from.

Because she  just won’t stop.  Why can’t my love be enough to make her stop?

Please, someone… help her stop…

 

Yes.

It is killing me not to talk to her.

But I am still here.

What’s best for me *is* what’s best for her.

I don’t know what to do.

I just don’t know what to do.

So I have to Just Wait.

I don’t know what that means.

Am I waiting for my dreams to come true?

Am I waiting until I have to cut the damaged heart loose for good so I can begin building a new one?

How can I do that? I gave her my word I would always be here for her.

Just wait.

Just wait.

The answers will come.

I don’t want to be a fool…


I don’t want to be a fool…

She kissed me in the snow, and later went back to remember our time in pictures before the footprints went away.

She wanted me to hold her as long as I could, just to be with her and feel the warmth of her arms.

She gave me the courage to challenge myself, to face my weaknesses and confront them.

She opened up to me about the wounds she’s suffered, crying in front of me even though she refuses to let anyone see her tears.

She’s given me the honor of being a treasured person in her life.

She asked me about moving far away to be with her, and if I could bring my commitments with me.

There are so many things that stand in the way of us. The longest of longshots. 

But only a fool would give up on a longshot with a woman like her.

So… No. I gave her my heart – the price of the passionate kind of love that’s the only one worth having. And I will never take it back; it doesn’t belong to me anymore.

All I want is one chance. But I want that chance. More than anything I’ve wanted in a very long time.

I want the chance for her to see the world through my eyes.

What she deserves from a good man.

As much time in the Holy City as she can give me. Time spent in good faith.

If afterwards she finds me wanting, I will begin to build a new heart, and thank her for the inspiration she has given me to see it truly beat once more.

No more could I ask of her, because it just truly would not be meant to be.
No more could I do and still be the man I want to give her.
No more could I wound myself by dreaming dreams never meant to be.

If she will not give me that chance… then the passion she awakened must not die… but I can never again let her in. I will carry forth in spite of sadness and pain, but never again through darkness thanks to her gift that she would want me to keep.

All will be right with the universe… except for me.

May. My dreams rest with May. I can’t fight in these trenches much longer. My heart is freezing in Canada, despite how warm her hands are. She tells me she wants me to find someone else, but she knows I can’t. No one else…is her.

What I know is if we lived in the same city, we would be together. She has told me that without words so many times.

I need her to see mine. The azaleas in bloom. The calm of the Spring sea. The Palmetto trees rustling in the cool sea breeze. The clicks and clacks of trotting horses on streets four centuries old. A whole city just waiting to make her bask in warmth and happiness… at least until my commitments are met.

Each day I go to work, I work for May. For that chance. It becomes effortless. Gratifying. The joy arms me against the interminable wait.

I always thought my happiness would be determined by Love. But as I have learned, Love is so often determined by Timing. Risk. Courage. Trust.

One of these is outside my hands, and it is maddening. So if I must be the Gambler…I put my hopes and dreams on The Holy City in May, and in that, I leave it to her.

I don’t want to be a fool. What time I have left is too important. But only a fool wouldn’t roll those dice on a chance for a woman like her.