Basic Diagram of Vulnerability

As I hunch in this lumpy chair, weary of any work I've gotten done today, and typing my brains out like some mad scientist, I of all things have the desire to write about love. Great, I mention the word love and my shoulders instantly tense up. See! I can't do this...*takes a deep breath*. Okay, hopefully I can explore this physical manifestation before I hyperventilate and realize how much I despise talking or writing about this topic publicly.

Nevertheless, it’s like this: BE ALL YOU CAN BE TODAY. You know, Carpe Diem and shit – do that until the wheels fall off because one day you’ll wake up and love will be painfully staring at you with its fucked up eye. I mean staring you right-smack-dab in the middle of your face (I say painfully for a lack of a better more horrifying word.) When I think of love I stress out. I think of agony when I think of love. I think of worrying. No matter who is in this love with me there is a guaranteed heavy dose of stress, agony, and worrying. There are these super highs and super lows. There are these walk on egg shells days. These, "Don’t puke while I puke but you still puke any way days (oh great now we have to clean up the freaking puke!)", and there are these wonderful debate days about anything minus oblivion (okay, no, yup it’s now plus oblivion that was just confirmed.) It really beats the hell out of me sometimes. 

There are these, "I’m this close to leaving your ass days," and then something really funny happens and I don’t. There are these, "I’m literally so very tired and so very sick of you days." There are some, "What would I do without you days," (those tend to be my favorite), and some, "I just want to stick to you like white on rice days." There are even these days where we agree on the same thing we disagreed on a couple of days back (huh?) 

When I think of love I think of fake car chases and running to the Toyota quick because “they’re out to get us” – whoever “they” are, “Mash the gas! Let’s go baby! Hurry!” (ahh yes, invisible bad guys – jealous?) Love makes me think of scrounging for pennies just to make sure we make it to the place we always eat at (when we clearly don’t have enough money at the time and could easily downgrade or go somewhere else.) There are these days I dunk my head underneath a tub of hot water so that my entire body is immersed and I just float there lifeless wondering what the hell love is. 

Yes, love is patient, yes, love is kind, and yes love is unconditional. I love to love. I get that that’s love. I do. No one ever mentions the “other side” of it on the other hand. There is definitely another side. There’s the stress, the agony, and the worry – that tense feeling you know. As gut wrenching as that sounds it’s there too. Nonetheless, going through those feelings can be rewarding; nights are warmer, days are more promising, and the companionship is priceless because the love has gotten a chance to go through every crevice of your mind and heart; every peak and every valley. You’re all in this thing and you can feel every tick–tock of it so much so that you’re affected emotionally, spiritually, and physically. 

I’d say love is an investment; it’s abundant yet expensive. There’s a work ethic to love that I believe I can only pseudo master because I haven’t a clue how to really get in there and truly understand or figure it out (maybe there’s nothing to figure out.) There are some days where silence is appreciated, where certain looks are understood, and where a good, deep, long, and tight hug is really all the words you need. 

Wisdom is on love’s coattail and that dynamic appreciates with time. Love is falling in love over and over again. It’s not giving up on each other that day as to spare you another 24 hours to try and get it right again. I accept everything that comes with love as I mature in love (I say that now but don’t quote me on that) as long as I (as Stephen King put it), “…keep talking, arguing, making love, dancing…,” and courageously loving, it will be.

“We came from similar working-class backgrounds, we both ate meat…Yet what ties us most strongly are the words, the language, and the work of our lives.” – Stephen King

Turning 27

The day after 27, I wake up around 8:20-ish from sleep paralysis (www.webMD.com for clarification on sleep paralysis)

“I have one theory that those of us who suffer or who have suffered from this inadvertently are phase shifting somehow and allowing ourselves to slip into another dimension where we are visible and open to attacks.”

Research on the issue gravitate me to this quote. I’ve experienced this two other times, but this time the feeling is a malevolent presence, more prevalent, more terrifying; I read the Holy Spirit should be called on for guidance and discernment in an occurrence such as this. However, I still don’t fully know what it is and calling and thinking about him is always the answer. It doesn’t take being 27 to know this.

As at every age past 18, the moves I make have to be strategic, have to make sense, have to be a step in the right direction; they must not take me backwards; to the side maybe and diagonal fine, but not backwards. But, what is backwards? What is to the side? Maybe these terms should not exist.

Still praying and trying to hone in my ever wandering mind. Thirsting for true answers, true meaning, my purpose; the person I am intended to be – exactly as intended to be. At 27, I’m having a hard time making permanent decisions. I’m in mid-life crisis mode, yet, I’m not having a mid-life crisis, because this isn’t that age to have one, is it?

Society at 27 wants you to believe you are failing right now if you haven’t reached your pinnacle; that you are not where you should be. Some people are mind you. Unfortunately, I am certainly not. 27 makes you think about life’s beam you are still balancing on; ever so steady, in a panic; possibly ever so tiresomely, in a constant cloud of brainstorming.

Fair enough, this is the part where your brain says, “Hey, you still have time…” Yes the word time; and as time slips, I can’t help but to think at my age, at this time, in this room where does the time go? No really, where does it go. No way to get it back, but instead I must overuse every minute of time I seemingly do have; will have; should have? I’m 27 now, it is time I used my time more wisely. Is what I say to myself in disgust and anger; as if to say, “You should have been using it wisely already fool. It is too late now.” Evolving my cognitive thinking and positive thoughts will get me to my beautiful 30’s.

These next three years need to be full of careful planning, meeting strategic goals, and damn good execution. My eyes are more open now at 27 than ever, because I’ve never been here before. Each year that goes by means more to me. Forever weary of wasting time on things that I am not passionate about; wanting to be internally happy eternally. Not just with one aspect of my life, but with all aspects of my life. Why can’t that be possible? What about overall happiness makes it eligible for such impossible achievement? I’m sure these are one of those years you thrust yourself into soul-searching if haven’t already… Let it continue… Let it begin.