Poignant People

Sometimes people drift into your life, and then they are there awhile before you realize the tides changed when they arrived. One such person sent me a note this weekend that made my spirit waver. He has seen me struggle both at work and with my health, and it meant a lot that he noticed and cared enough to say anything. And he made me think...


Within me is the worry that people born of my make and model are destined for torture. I’ve been deliberating specifically today on whether there is a life I can choose to lead that will bring me to a path of peace, not sickness and utter overwhelming life adherence to a burning notion of safety. Is it possible to choose a dedication that both sustains and inspires me? That alone should be the ultimate goal of humanity, but we tend to allow the forceful systems of society to assault us in an opposing trajectory.

I decided this week to surrender to this breeze that swept by. I heard slight sounds of encouragement speaking, softly parading ideas of simplicity and solitude. In an honest and earnest moment I realized that I haven’t truly been alone in what feels like years. And now that I see this, I have the chance to grasp the best of two worlds I have known; the world of withdrawn dissolution, spiritual, lonely, yet productive, and the world of quiet companionship, full of acceptance, dedication and sacrifice.

There are lives out there that are honorable influences for us all. And while there is no perfect answer to the meaning of being alive, felicity is a human quality that is not only achievable, but also natural. So by stripping away skin that is not natural, the complexion of the spirit cleanly and smoothly reveals itself.

When life, death, and regret face you with its unreadable glassy eyes, thoughts begin to resemble understanding in a truer sense. Material things, false words, crazy fallacies begin to lose their grasp. I remember facing death 6 years ago, my hunger and realization of the world around me became only a charade and hallucination. People, words, advertisements, money danced around me and I was the ghost lingering in the center, staring at Josh cemented to a hospital bed. When I thought he was going to die, time itself began to move in slow motion. Nothing more mattered that whole year, not angry kids I worked with, not awkward wedding plans, not the size of my jeans or condition of my car. When you see life at its most vulnerable, you yourself have the opportunity to become vulnerable and reflective.

There are no enemies to be had, only enemies to be made. I know I can hold no one but myself accountable for my feelings or the sick setting my surroundings can become. Because change should be for the good, it shouldn’t be feared. I don’t dismay that my body won’t sustain, but I do grudge the passing of time. So this should be an inspiration to live moments for moments, to hold ourselves accountable for these moments, and to hope our moments seep into the spatial quality of our world. Our light then can diffuse through our cracks, not be sucked from our cavities.

Awareness is a gift. Now we just need the gift of a trampoline to bounce us when we jump, shooting us wherever it is we will land.