Friday 29 November 2013

Love and Time

Sometimes when I think of God, I think of time. Other times when I think of God, I think of love.

Sometimes, I feel like God IS love, and everything else, all the other details and relatively meaningless things that we humans use to separate ourselves, don't matter one bit. And when I think about it, about how we all try to find ways to make our God better than their God, it makes me sad -- the way we hold to our beliefs with such hubris when all that really matters is what we are all trying to achieve: Goodness.

Love; in every religion, place and culture is the same. The only thing that changes is what we choose to love and how we choose to love. I believe we are born knowing only one thing, and it's love. Loving is natural, meanwhile its polar opposites are learned behaviours. We have to be taught to hate, to separate, to judge.

And we all naturally have a moral compass, too. We all know what is right and what is wrong. We all aspire to be better people, whether better in each other's eyes, our parent's, our enemies', our God's, it's the same goal. (Those of us with a conscience and no psychiatric disorders, of course.) It's just unfortunate that we create so many loops and obstacles for ourselves and one another to achieve that goodness and become better humans. We weave them into our bibles, our social constructs, our perceptions, our judgments ... anything to separate and rank. Anything to stop us from loving, selflessly and wholly.

But for those of us who still practise altruism, those of us who haven't gotten caught up in the narcissism that is so rampant in the world, God comes to us in the form of time. He teaches patience and humility, and that too soon is just as bad as too late. He teaches us what to focus on, what to cherish, what we will never get back.

He controls everything, father time. He decides our emotions, and the emotions of even the earth. He decides how we look, how we act, what we do. It is up to him how long heartbreak will last, how long happiness will last, how long relationships will last. He decides our health, our strength and our desires. All of it boiling down to patience. Everything in its time and not a minute earlier. That is especially so for love. We have to wait for love, for someone whose patience and resilience matches ours; wait until we find our truth and ourselves; wait until Father Time leads us right into the arms where we belong.

But in the meantime, most importantly, we have to continue to love, even when it hurts. Even, most times, without getting a single thing in return.

Thursday 21 November 2013

Apples in A Bunch

It's unfair, insulting, and perhaps a little childish to allow one bad apple to spoil the whole bunch.

But let's face it, it's human nature to generalise and group and label. It's how we apply logic to mostly illogical and inexplicable behaviour. It's how we armour up and prepare ourselves to more intelligently battle the same demon that overcame us the last time. (Plus, let's be honest here. It's usually way more than just ONE bad apple.) 

Still, as much as I hate being one of "those people", this cruel, cruel world has finally pushed me over the edge and into the sea of misery where no one is to be trusted and smiles simply cover up inner turmoil. I was invited as a plus one by my friend "company", whose invitation I had been ignoring for quite some time now. 

But grief is the name of the game. 

A person can only handle heartbreak so many times before he/she decides to take full control of his/her affairs of the heart. If you've been an avid reader of my blog, you should know how I feel about emotional pain. (Substitute for a broken leg? I'll even take menstrual cramps for 500. Please?)

Hence, I have made the unfortunate yet necessary decision to take control. And by "take control" I mean to build a wall so high that not even Humpty Dumpty would climb it. (He'd probably fall off anyway so it's probably a good idea for him to stay away. Maybe go to the gym? No pressure.)

Now, I'll be the first to call myself out on this and say how ashamed I am to see myself relapse this badly and do exactly what I try to tell others not to do, but I think I've suffered enough emotional pain this year for a lifetime. And quite frankly, I've had enough. It can't possibly hurt me anymore than how I've already been hurt to take a little time to refocus and regroup behind my impenetrable wall. It will be far too hard to do so with people coming in and out of my sanctuary at will, disturbing and destroying everything on their way out -- and sometimes, most times, even blocking the damn entrance. 

And yes, the wall "also keeps good out", not just bad, but I'll take my chances. The probability of the next penis-weilding person to come in only for the purpose of causing a raucous with his narcissism and ADHD is probably far greater than its more selfless, cautious and dedicated opposite. 

Plus, how else will I be able to see who cares enough to climb it?

Tuesday 19 November 2013

Dear You.

You'd probably never believe me if I told you that my life has been nothing short of a soap opera this year, judging by the inactivity on my blog.

You probably would also not believe that this has been one of the worst years of my life. 

When I say the lowest of the low ... It's no exaggeration.

The. Absolute. Pits.

It's the kind of stuff that would make for good television -- or at the very least, a few good blogs. But for some reason, I just couldn't get myself to ever open up a page and start writing. Certainly, after the last two blogs about heartbreak, there has been plenty more where that came from -- among other things. And truth be told, it makes me feel extremely pathetic. 

But who wants to sit around writing every day about how pathetic and worthless they are? 

Not me. (You want me to write about Feelings? I'll pass.)

I'd rather write about exciting new developments and positivity and growth (after all, I have been a Miami City Hall reporter for more than a year -- and not the sleezy, sensational kind).

Hence, my last post was about Trayvon Martin. And I wish I were here today to begin down that path of "exciting new developments", but really I came here because, well ... I am on the verge of explosion. So I guess it's time to let it out. (Some of it, anyway. The easy stuff.)

How many times does someone have to treat you like utter rubbish before you finally realise that maybe they aren't right for you? And when did I become THAT girl? The pathetic one who's clinging to something that would rather leap into a piranha's mouth than reach back a few inches?

When did it get this bad, and how, for God's sake, do I make it stop? 

I've got plenty of other things I could be focusing on right now (like finding a job) than this nonsense, AGAIN.

If you don't know how to think ahead about the consequences of your current actions, or how to not say what you don't mean or won't mean in a week ... Then please keep your actions and your bullshit as far away from me as possible. You saw me sitting here alone, quite content. So just let me be. I don't go out of my way to reach out to any of you and I don't see what pleasure you get out of interrupting my solitude with commitments and promises you don't intend to keep. Spare me.

I promise I can do without it.

I've really had enough dream-selling for one year. So the next time you get the urge to save me from myself with lies you think I want to hear, don't.