Epiphany

 I've been trying to find the reason, and make sense of everything that happened and why it happened the way it happened.

We've been talking about starting an anti-cult cult, a deprogramming program, a sort of anarchristianity. If there is anything I can leave behind in this world that speaks for me and of me and everything I held most important in life, I hope it can be the message that embracing our individuality is the greatest gift we can give ourselves.

Because I think I have finally found the seed of everything that had to happen for me to find my way back to my soulmate. I needed to accept myself. I needed to find my way back to myself, which would in turn lead me back to him. I had to go away and behold, longingly, how he stayed true to himself and embraced his authenticity with a fierceness and a bravery I couldn't even fathom for myself. I understand now, how I raged at the world for not allowing me to be myself, but I was doing it to myself. I was suffocating and repressing myself and in that state I detonated and destroyed everything around me in a dark tantrum. I wanted to be loved, I wanted to feel accepted. Who can blame me for thinking I wasn't? Truth was there was such a wide chasm between who I was and who I was expected to be that I mangled and tortured that reality and forced her to adapt, to conform, to follow, to mold.

I almost succeeded in killing her.

But then it shouldn't come as a surprise that when that became too much, when it became unsustainable, when I finally realized I was on my way to being dead way before I even hit the ground, I made the decision to save myself. To heal myself. To make myself whole again. And it's no surprise that that's exactly when life brought him back to me, put him right there in my path, also beaten up and weather worn, but still mine despite all the years and in-betweens.

And you can't tell me that it's not right. Not anymore. You can never convince me that this isn't what is mine, this is part of who I am, and this kind of love is what I deserve. And if I am to detonate again I hope it is so I can explode in love and build as much as I destroyed in my bleakest era. If I am still here there's still hope.

Atonement

 We all knew...

Something happened recently. Something that has nothing to do with me. Something that dropped on the center of two lives and caused ripples that haven't reached their limit. I am probably somewhere on the outer banks of the pond where this crashed, but still the air moved around me in a way it never had before.

And it begs so many questions. It demands attention from everyone whose mind has curled at the news.

Because we knew.

And at times like this it becomes sobering, it becomes real. We realize that we seem to think we know what we have to do, we are righteous, we are people of action, we stand for no evil. But in reality we often don't even know how to acknowledge its presence. And shit makes me scared.

I'm afraid

And not of the shit out there, I'm not afraid of what might come to me from beyond my watchtower

I'm afraid of what might still be inside of me.

I don't want to learn to trust myself too much, I don't want to grow complacent in my evolution as a human being. I want to keep holding myself to the standards of the way of peace, happiness and fulfillment that I want for myself and those around me. I don't ever want to hurt anyone again. But I have to wonder if there's not still an evil in me that won't change. I can't torture myself with such thoughts, but I can't completely let go of them either. They have to be a fixture in my house, not a decoration I can store away and lose sight of.

Complacency is such a heady poison... it acts like a drug until it kills. And evil is a rabid dog inside our minds that takes many names in the real world. When we learn to name it we tie it to a chain, and when we learn how to control it we shorten its lead. But it never truly dies, and because of this it requires our attention from time to time. At least to acknowledge that it's still there and at once it had roamed free and wreaked havoc and if we don't mind it from time to time it could break its bonds, corroded by or own hubris.

I've learned to love and accept myself for the tragic mix of kindness and evil in  me, as everyone should. But this is a reminder... that I can't and shouldn't lose sight of the lead and the dog stalking from the shadows of my mind...

I know.