Dew by Design.

I was just sitting here thinking about real life. Considering the possibilities that lie ahead. There’s alot about my life that I never anticipated, asked for or desired. I always felt a sense of solitude and chose to see the comfort in that. I look at that now and know that while I don’t want to exists in this world alone romantically, I also don’t know how to give up a lot of the alone-time-expectations that I have become accustomed to.

Solitude is how I deal with the negative emotions that overtake people regularly. I’m comfortable in my thoughts. In the world in my head, everything I am exists there. But what happens when someone wants to love me? When there is a world outside my head that needs my attention. Thats hard for me. Only because I fight it. I want it all. And I want it to be fair. I search for commitments that bend to my need. When my partner needs more of my time than I am willing to give, my guilt finds a reason to let go.

It’s not fair but it is effective. It’s not the answer but it is a bandaid that soothes.

Sharing?

I’m not an only child but I was one long enough that I never really got used to the concept. Sharing in the sense that breathes compromise is a window I keep shut.

I’m used to being right. I’m used to others thinking I’m right so when I know I should compromise instead I take advantage of pre-existing frames of mind that frame my response as the way to go. It works to my favor. But.

I see the necessity in family. I see the need in romance and love. I always had love for my friends, love for my mom and sister but it was the romantic love that I never invested enough in to weigh an outcome to compare. Love was simply a way to pass the time. Until now.

Giving several reason to let go, I stay. You’re dealing with someone who could detach from wind if oxygen didn’t keep me alive. But. I stay. In the middle of fear, the middle agrevation, in the middle of blinding rage, I stay. I stay as a concrete, unwavering choice. And that scares me.

Don’t misunderstand. It is not fear that cements my decision. It’s the comfort. The skin to skin oath that we’re in this together. That more than anything is what takes my breath away. When everything has lost its composure and nothing is firm enough for my footsteps and I feel these walls suffocating me, its the silence and the skin that breath life back into my spirit.

It’s not easy. The old me, that likes conversations in my head and alone time will always exists. But, I am learning to voice what I need instead of assuming its too much for them to bare.

I have reared (yes, I know what reared means, find the poetry in it) myself to separate from the emotion and find the logic in every situation. But, there is no logic in love. Why now instead of then? Why you instead of them? Why here instead of there? The variable will never fade. If I lose what I have now, then have effectively lost a moment in time. It’s the one action that affects every aspect of your life. And this is where I stand.

I still have some growing to do. I still must find the balance between my emotions and my mind, love and logic but thats what this moment was meant to be. Right now begins a new ripple it what is to come. I am loved.

And. That changes everything.

iamdew

Why do we not strive to be better people? I’m not speaking spirituality here. Religion has not cornered the market on good people. I am speaking of a daily exercise in choice and restraint and justice.

While driving in pouring rain this morning I was talking to my mom. She was telling me about the message she was receiving while listening to TD Jakes. The CD was Alone but not Lonely. She was questioning why she was still alone? She was asking what she needed to change to be sent a mate? Loneliness is something we all grapple with but in my mom’s case, I think it is likened to having a terminal disease.

her questions center around why isn’t she worthy of being in a relationship with someone else who is worthy? She said she doesn’t know what it is that she needs to change. I told her that she knows the difference between right and wrong so focus on working on the wrong behavior regardless of the reward for doing so.

“But I don’t know which to change?”

“Change them all.”

“Change what?”

“Ma, you know the difference between right and wrong. What are you doing that’s wrong?”

“I curse, I drink, I smoke but…”

“Start with those things. Change those.”

“I can’t change those. Why I gotta be perfect to have somebody? All these other people out here got somebody and they not perfect.”

“You will never be perfect either. The first thing to work on is looking at other people and what they have…”

“I’m too old for that. Its not like I’m having sex,” (cringe). “…or anything like that. I’m not killing nobody. I need something to do so I won’t lose my mind.”

We struggle with our own sum total of parts to find purpose in this life. Regardless of spirituality, personal montra or philosophy we all have an idea of right and wrong (barring any mental instabilities). What is the link that affords us the thinking that it is only beneficial to walk the right path if there is a pot of gold at the end?

I’m told not everyone can be as righteous as me. I don’t see myself as being righteous at all. I have demons. I have a very bad anger issue and I’m selfish to a fault but wouldn’t letting those things set me back be the ultimate #fail on my existence?

I don’t forgive because it the Godly thing to do. I forgive because it’s the right thing to do. I don’t choose to give the 10.00 in change back that I was erroneously handed, I give it back because it’s not mine. It doesn’t matter that the person next to me may get the same extra change and choose to keep it. It doesn’t matter that the person I forgave may choose to hurt me again, it was my choice to forgive them. I didn’t forgive them because the outcome, not being hurt again, was guaranteed.

If these reactions that we absorb ourselves in become the precursor to our choices, do we not dilude the very righteousness we hope to attain? If I cannot make a step without securing a safe path will I ever really go anywhere?

I don’t believe in God because my mom tells me too or because its the status quo. I believe in God for the trials and tribulations I believe he pulled me through. His existence is wrapped in my belief of his actions in my life. I follow what I believe to be the priniciples set in my heart by God because I choose to do so not because I fear hell if I don’t.

We persecute others when they follow a path we deem filthy or “bad”. What makes it bad is usually the consequences at stake from the choices being made. But how is that any different from someone who’s choices are outwardly filtered for public consumption when in their heart they seek the same outcome as the person on the filthy path? Where is the line?

My mom doesn’t want to live the rest of her life alone. But, she also doesn’t want to invest the effort it may take to change destructive habits that she’s piled-up over a lifetime. So what is the right thing to do?

Right and wrong, good and bad are all relative terms that give us the verbal ability to express acceptable, constructive and productive behavior compared to unacceptable, deconstructive, and unproductive behavior. Where we see the lines really come down to the effects they have on our lives. I don’t think the lesson my mom is learning has anything at all to do with finding a mate but whether you believe in God or the stars, something has lead her path to a crossroads and finding a mate is simply the motivation for the most productive choice.

She can choose to ignore it. We can choose to ignore it. the little voice egging us on, pushing us to do whats inherent, what’s “right”. We hate the responisbility, we hate the dedication and the effort it requires but our feelings about the choice has no consequence on the choice itself. It is apart of us. Ignoring it, abhoring it, loathing or lamenting it only affects us in the outcome. So we can make excuses for not doing it. We can say it’d be easier to be worse people but standing at the crossroads, searching for an outcome we both know, the right thing, once exposed to it, once encompassed or touched by it, is hauntingly inevitable because the wrong thing may be easier but the only the right will truly make you happy.