If I Fell, Would You be There to Catch Me?

I haven’t posted on my e-journal in quite some time now. Sometimes the habits of the past are just too hard to break. But, at least I came back this time after only a few weeks instead of a few months.

I’ve come back to write about something that has been bothering me over the past few years. Ya know, there was a period in my life where I spent every daylight our helping people who I didn’t know. I gave up college and the ability to start my life right away because I felt there was something I had yet to experience about my life. And so, I took years off of my life after I graduated high school to become a volunteer.

Those years that I volunteered at my old high school’s library were some of the most memorable moments of my life. I learned so much over the course of those four years. I’d met so many interesting people, made more friends after I graduated from high school than while I was actually a student, learned a lot more about myself, took in so much wisdom from people who’d experienced so much more than me, and left my mark in a place I now know like the back of my hand.

But it wasn’t until I decided that the days of high school were over, that I learned one of the most cruelest things about life: No matter how much time you give to your one part of the world, there will always be people who are ungrateful for the time you’ve given. Part of the things that I learned while I was there was that teachers aren’t perfect. They’re people just like everyone else and the image that we see them for as students is just something they have to do for us. Behind the scenes, their worlds aren’t always complete, they are in disarray, or they’re still trying to find their place just as much as you are.

I related this to my own personal experiences with my friends. I stopped to wonder, of all the friends I have made over the past few years, how many of those would be there if I needed them. But furthermore, how many of those “friends” aren’t really friends at all? Instead, are they just people who kept you because you were handy and once your usefulness was over, you could be quickly forgotten about like a passing stranger.

While I want to believe that the people I know would never do that to me, I must accept the fact that I have dealt with people who were indeed just like that. Once I had completed a task for them or once I had been used as the shoulder to cry on when no one else would listen, I was casted off as nothing more than someone they knew of, but didn’t know. As I think back on it now, that’s pretty much the way most of my friendships and relationships have been. I serve my purpose and people expect me to move on and hope that I will no longer  be a part of their lives. Only, I’m a fool enough to believe that those people actively sought me out because they knew I would listen, offer my advice, and then when they felt better, they would have no problem having me be a part of their lives. All in a days work for being a guy with a big heart.

But there is much to be said about those with big hearts who really are trying to help and don’t mind to help. God bless those who do so much and expect nothing in return. Who would work day and night to build someone who lost their house a brand new one in sweltering heat and only asking for food and drink until it was done. A simple pat on the back, a thank you, maybe even a prayer for them every Sunday. Even soldiers who give up much to defend our country. Their families conform so much and sacrifice to give us protection. Even if you thought on the most minor of scales; a stranger in a store who sees you drop something from your purse or sees you drop your wallet. Instead of keeping it for themselves, they find you and give it back to you. There are still people like that in this world. I know, I’m one of them. It’s becoming harder and harder to stay one, but I know that there are still people just like me out there.

But once help is given, there are people who would constantly expect it and those that have received it, might do anything to hold onto it. Using the weapon of guilt on someone with a big heart is the cruelest weapon of all. The expectation that a good person is always supposed to be there for you after they’ve done something for you perhaps out of their good nature or just because they’re a good friend is a very misguided idea. But the sad reality is that there are people who never understand they’re being taken advantage of and a cycle that is nothing less than abuse begins.

What took me four, almost five, years to understand is that before you can help others, you must help yourself. Before you can take care of the needs of those that could use your help, you must make sure that there is nothing going on in your life that must be taken care of first. If in time, you are spending more time taking care of someone else’s issues when you have more important things to worry about, then the balance is off and the only person who is going to suffer is you. Those who would take advantage of you would never want you to do the things you have to do in your own life. It is in their mentality that you are only apart of their life to serve them and make them happy. You and your priorities, to the abuser, are a very distant second. The second you begin to show a sign of responsibility for yourself, the abuser uses guilt or calls you selfish for thinking of someone else other than them. If you’re not strong mentally to deal with this attack or you’re blind to realize what is happening, you will fall like a house of cards in an earthquake.

In the end, I guess, I’m thankful that I understand all of this now. I could have spent the rest of my life wondering what I could be doing while still giving up my time somewhere else instead of using it for myself.

I’m not saying that people shouldn’t help people. What I am saying is that you shouldn’t take advantage of the kind nature of people. For sake that there aren’t very many left in the world, give the ones that are still here a reason to keep doing what they’re doing. Let them be happy in their own lives. For having their own lives in order and being able to give back to others with their free time could be their little slice of Heaven that we all wish we could find.

Prisoner to Unreal Thoughts

I had trouble sleeping last night. I’m not really sure on what to blame it on at this point because I don’t really know what the cause was. There is one thing that I do understand though. I was blessed with a mind that not only has the ability to create stories and people, but also given the ability to remember events of my past vividly.

You might be telling yourself that this isn’t a very big deal. That’s great that I can remember things pretty clearly. I’m sure there are some people who would love to have the ability to remember things from their past that were worth remembering. I on the other hand, I have the opposite effect. I can remember things, but they aren’t really things that I want to remember. And though I can remember them with almost crystal clarity, my mind often warps them into visions that didn’t actually take place.

It’s my curse, I guess. It’s a course that own mind has taken memories from my past and used them to create a sort of mental prison. It doesn’t matter how far back the memory seems to be. As long as it was a memory that I would have rather forgotten because it wasn’t important or I just didn’t want to remember it, it will use it.

So what’s the big deal about this? People often remember the bad more than they remember the good. But what makes my experience different is that it leaves me worried. It leaves me worried to the point to where I have trouble sleeping at night. The memories created in my mind are so real, that I often must talk myself out of them in order to calm myself down. I could create a situation in my head that would probably never take place and yet my mind would make me believe that it’s a very real possibility that it would happen. The experience is completely exhausting to say the least.

The one thing that seems to set it off is boredom. If I find myself bored, my mind wanders. Without little or any warning at all, my mind will be jumping along at memory after memory until it creates a situation. When that situation is blown completely out of proportion, the anxiety sets in. It’s this rogue anxiety that bothers me so much. I really don’t know how to get rid of it. At best, I can channel it into another work like working on the blog that I’m working on now. All I can do is let it run its course, until the facts that I know to be true, become too overpowering for the anxiety to exist and it goes away.

Sometimes, I honestly think I’m going insane. I like to consider myself a rational person when it comes to my own ideas. It’s just strange to know that my mind does this to me. Perhaps it’s God’s way of showing me I’m still human. That I can still hurt even if the ideas aren’t real. All I know is, I’ve only managed to successfully channel this strange energy only a few times. I only hope that it doesn’t ruin me from all the times it was too much to bear.

Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Amen.

The Urge: February 15th, 2010

This is about right for me. Still awake in nearly the middle of the night and feeling that I need to create something before I lay my head to rest for the night. It would be possible for a normal person just to shake off the feeling of leaving something undone for the day and getting to it the next day, but that feeling doesn’t easily disappear when you’re a writer. Or, at least in my case, having the mind of a writer that desperately wants to be crafted every single time it commands.

It’s been difficult over the past few years to get a handle on the things that I want to write down. I’m not really sure from day to day on whether or not the urge will hit me at all. If and when it does hit me, I’m not even sure what it is I’m going to write about. That’s golden for a writer. Having the will to write and not having something to write about. At that point, the paper becomes a blank canvas and you can make it into anything you want without a pre-determined idea of what you want.

It downright sucks sometimes. I never know what it will take to set off my Urge to write and when it goes off, I often have to find the time to work it in. I’ve always been a procrastinator. But The Urge doesn’t understand that. It doesn’t understand sadness or bliss. It doesn’t understand sickness, it doesn’t understand tired. It is because that is what it is. The basic need to create once it knows you have the ability to give it what it wants.

For the longest of time, knew that certain types of music would set it off. Classical music would set off a wave of images in my head of places I’d never dreamed of or even thought of before I’d heard that particular song. Sometimes it’s a wonderful sensation. It can put me in a state of euphoria to know that I have this ability.

But this feeling, as much as it is, is my curse. For as much as I’ve kept and honed this craft that I have been given, there are certain traits that I must keep in order for it to stay alive. The Urge has thrived on making me remember things that I’d rather forgotten. It makes me remember people that I wish I had never met. And it makes me remember feelings, I wish I didn’t have.

As much as live in this fantasy world of mine, I wonder if it is my escape. I wonder that because my life has been the way it has been, if somehow, some way, something more powerful than me has given me an escape. It’s given me something I could turn to that I could control myself and none of my creations could feel the same emotions or deal with the same ordeals that I dealt with early in my life.

(sigh) I really don’t know anymore. All I know is at this point in my life, this is what I must be. I must be what I have the abilities to do. No matter how much I might feel that it has always somehow managed to get in the way of my life, I must own this ability that I have and hope that one day I will be able to put it to good use and that it might take care of me for the rest of my life. If not, hopefully it will do me the favor of always being there to listen when my real life must be listened to first than that of my fantasy world.

May it be the ultimate best friend.

Remember What it Means…to Love and Some Wedding Vows if You’re Stuck

It’s half past Midnight here in Texas. It’s St. Valentine’s day. The day when people buy expensive flowers, gifts, and candies to give to the ones they love the most. Because, of course, nothing says loving like an empty wallet on Valentine’s Day.

Ahh, but of course I’m joking. There’s a lot more to this holiday than just what the stores would want to obviously shove down your throat. It’s a lot more than just roses and cupids. It’s more than pink strings and diamond rings, it’s more than candies and all things more fancy. No, it means much more than that. Today is that one day when love is almost as perfect as it’s going to get. If today, if you’re not in love you will either be looking to find love or be cursing up and down about how much you hate this holiday. If you’ve found love, you’ll either be rushing up and down store aisles trying to find that perfect gift, or planning a perfect night with the one you share your love with.

No matter what you’re doing on Valentine’s Day, remember that there is nothing that you can pay for with cash or with your debit cards that are ever going to make you or someone else happy or love you even more. The power of a gift fades, the shine of gold dulls, and even the thought of the gift will lose its meaning eventually.

That’s why Valentine’s Day shouldn’t just be the only day you tell that person you love them with all your heart. Everyday should have a little bit of Valentine’s Day. It shouldn’t take a holiday to tell someone you love them.

What does love mean, Archangel?

I think a question about love is just as difficult to answer as is asking the meaning of life. What exactly is love? Why do we need love in our lives and why is it that when some people have it, they don’t look like they deserve it, and those who do deserve it, are the ones that never seem to have it at all?

Love is that which can’t be touched or bought, it can only be experienced. Love is when that place in your heart is finally filled with the essence of something that you could never fill it with on your own. Love is a pact you make between your heart and your mind in which something you never had before in your life has now come into it and you’re willing to keep it close to you. It’s a person, an animal, or even an inanimate object which brings you such joy that you’re willing to do things you wouldn’t normally do for someone or something else. It’s a bond of trust or understanding.

But telling someone you love them is very much different than being in love with them. When you’re in love, you’ve crossed that final border between, “I will do things for you that I wouldn’t normally do for someone else” to “I would give up a part of my life to do things for you and only you because you are the part of my life that I can’t live without.” Marriages aren’t forged by people just loving each other. They’re bonded by people being IN love with each other. That’s why 50% of marriages end in divorce. You may have loved that person at one point or another, but could you really say that you were in love with that person? Did you know them well enough to know that the things they do in their lives you could live with in yours? Did they meet you half way enough that you knew they would be there for you when times would be tough? Did they ever feel the same way for you that you were feeling for them?

I’ve known several people in my life would would love to be in love. Who would love to have that sort of connection to someone, not just physical, but on an emotional level that most people forget about. You can’t build on a relationship on just what you do in the privacy of your bedrooms. A relationship and the love that holds it together must be built by conversation, mutual agreements, and long term promises that can never be broken. If in those moments when you are building that foundation, it doesn’t seem it will ever be able to be built up, it doesn’t mean that love is hopeless. It means that you just haven’t found that person you’re in love with. Love is never hopeless. Trust me, the promise of love is worth walking a million miles for. Because at the end of that journey, there will be someone willing to take care of you and hear all about it.

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As I said in my title, there would be wedding vows. For those of you guys (or ladies) who are up right now who just can’t find the words to say to that special someone, I think I can help you out a bit.

(enter name here), on this day, I make promises to you that I will never make with anyone else on this Earth. I make these promises in front of friends and family and in the eyes of powers greater than me.

With you, I wish to spend the remainder of my days and have them blessed by your spirit in my life everyday, from this day forth. I swear to you that on this day, you can hold me to every promise that I will make to you. I will keep them etched into my soul as long as you keep my heart safe for me. I vow, as your (wife or husband), to do my best to give you the life that is within my power to give to you and to give you every ounce of love and honor that you deserve.

I make no promises that the road we will travel on will be easy, but I promise you, that I will not walk down a path you will not join me on. I will not falter, if you will hold my hand the whole way. If you will be my partner, we will walk through this life with love in our hearts, and hope in our souls, that everyday will be brighter than the last. And we will love each other more than the minute passed.

If you used these lines, please feel free to leave a comment, and congratulations. Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone.

Are We Gonna Make it?

When I decided to make fantasy the style of writing I wanted to concentrate on, I had to stop and wonder about society itself. As people, we are a most complicated bunch. We divide ourselves into categories of people that we believe will be accepting of us. But little do we realize that the more we do this, the larger the divide becomes between us all.

I’ve had conversations with friends before on racism, religion, politics, cultural differences between them and myself. Through these conversations I have found while, yes these characteristics make us different from one another, it doesn’t really divide us. I love to find out things about different cultures or be taught a different way of thinking of something than the way I’ve been thinking it or was originally taught. That is what makes me human, that is what makes me mortal (I think).

It’s scary, however. These same divides not only split us up into the groups that society labels us, but it also creates hatred from people who would consider these groups armies for a building revolution. A revolution built on past angers for situations long past, rage for issues that were not the fault of the entering generation, or, sadly, the lines that have been drawn in sand by political figures to pin “us against them”.

Every great story has it’s own view on what it appears society to be. Tolkien did it, C.S. Lewis did it, even Shakespeare did it himself in his numerous plays. Writers will take the characteristics of people we believe fuel them and use them as the colors used to create new characters.

“What the hell are you talking about, Archangel?!”

I’m talking about this: Imagine the world if divides never existed. How would the great minds and great thinkers of literary works could have ever come up with the characters they created? All creations, even those that we consider mythical and probably impossible, must have stemmed from something that existed at one time. As stories have gone back, the evils that men do to each other because the divides they created has taken as many lives as writers have created in their stories.

Turn on the TV today and what do you see? We see a world that is more divided than ever. People are absolutely scared out of their minds about what tomorrow might bring for them. They’re full of rage, fear, confusion, and worse of all hopelessness.

I’ve watched so much political television over the past couple of years that the constant bickering from both sides is almost too annoying and all too redundant to listen to sometimes. Through the yelling of groups like the Tea Party, the lack of political oomph from the Democratic majority, and the blatant show of obstructionism from the Republicans, the most quietest voices that are lost in the masses of people, are those that are suffering, those that drive the spirit of the people and probably the spirit of a nation, while others bicker amongst themselves about what they believe is right.

It is through these people, that Writers find the everlasting well of ideas for stories. Writer’s Block should never exist.

But I should answer my question before I end this latest blog: Are we gonna make it? The only way for me to effectively answer that question is in a story.

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Old man, Archangel, sits on his front porch bench, sipping on a cold, glass of lemonade on a nearly perfect Spring day. The smell of the freshly cut wood of the porch is still captured in the gentle breeze and fills his nose ever so aromatically. He finishes his sip and holds the glass in his hand while resting it on the swinging bench’s arm.

From his seat, he watches as the teenagers from the high school walk by his home in their groups. Sometimes large, sometimes only a pair carrying on in their pop cultured language conversations. They are young men and women of various heights, builds, and colors of skin. Time has been gentle to most of them. The problems that most of them face are trivial at best, while some of them have serious problems they carry on their faces.

And from his right, a sound of a screen door opening and a tall, man walking out in a full military dress uniform. With a duffle bag in his right hand, and his hat in the other, he walks over to Archangel and wishes him well and tells him he will return in a month’s time. There is nothing to worry about in this time. The war is over. While peace has not been declared, it’s assumed that the military will not be needed any longer to finish deals with countries that didn’t go as planned.

The soldier hands him a journal as weathered as Archangel. The solder smiles and says, “Why don’t you tell me how it ends before you never get the chance?” He takes a few steps off the porch, then into a car and drives off into mystery. A piece of silk acts as marker from where the soldier left off. Archangel flips to the pages and reads a single question written by him decades ago.

February 8th, 2010
Are we gonna make it?

He rakes his fingers gently against the page with the cryptic words and a tear falls from his aged eye. Time has been cruel to the once well penned writer and so, he cannot write back the answer to the question he left himself long ago. Instead, he answers with tears in his eyes and the wisdom in his heart, mind, and soul.

“In my lifetime, I witnessed the miracles of society that we thought we may never see. I watched as a person of color was chosen to lead a nation that had fallen from greatness.

“In my lifetime, I witnessed the separation of people based on their political affiliations, their cultures, their morals, and even the color of their skin. I watched as a once great nation sank into the darkness God had given me the ability not to be born into. Instead, he gave me the ability to have a mind filled with wisdom enough to understand the evils of this ignorance.

“In my lifetime, I wrote words on paper and on a computer monitor and prayed that one day someone would read my words and change the way they look at life. Today, I read my own words and wonder how much my own life has changed.

“To those who would read this in the past and wonder about the future, I will tell you this. The world will continue. Generations will be born, leaders will be chosen, and the ignorance of our pasts will slowly be erased by the death of those who carried it with them. The rage, fear, and hated that was fueled only the the unwillingness to change that which needed to be changed, the inability to adapt to new ways of life, the heartlessness to chose greed over life will end. Color will remain as just a color, our faith will define how close we are to our God and not our religion, and money will be seen as that which can buy you all that you may want, but it will never buy you anything you need.

“Still, it is a shame that this truth has held true for those generations before me. That I must live through the suffering only to see and demand the change, but never will I have the chance to live it for myself. But still… the world will continue without me a better place than in my lifetime.”

Sail Home, Teddy Bear

On my desk is a musical snow globe. I’ve had it for almost ten years now and I look at it as a reminder of times long before now. When times were much more simpler and the answers were much more easier to come by.

The inside is that of a teddy bear in a blue sailor suit looking through a spyglass. He’s standing a toy sailboat with a patch in the sail and treasure box behind him. When you wind up the music box part of him, the song that plays is “It’s a Small World After All.”

I was in high school when I got this keepsake. It was given to me by a teacher I still talk to today. While she was out shopping one day afterschool, she saw this snow globe and she thought it reminded her so much of me; a lost soul with so many talents and dreams, but hard pressed to find where it was he belonged in the world. That was me. In a way, I still think that’s me.

Over the years, I’ve started numerous projects, helped complete strangers, dedicated a portion of my life to helping the generation after me get a foothold into lives they didn’t think were possible. All the while, I set aside my own hopes and aspirations to put theirs ahead of mine. Was it because that was just who I am as a person, was it because that was what God wanted me to do with that period of time in my life and wanted me to go through the personal hell in the background that I was going through, or was I just not selfish enough to throw everyone else under the bus and do what I wanted? I still don’t have an answer to this day.

What bothers me more than most is that I’m not sure if all the time that I put into half the things in that part of my life were even worth it. I’m reminded periodically by some of those people I helped how ungrateful they actually are to the  years I put into helping people. Perhaps it’s their loss, but it certainly is disheartening to know that there are people who’s souls are just that dark.

At night, as part of the curse I have endured ever since I had taken pencil to paper and fingers to keys, I stop and wonder if every story is worth telling. There are millions and millions books in the world and my story will soon be part of the masses. It will be part of a silent society of hard bound pages sitting in store or library bookshelves. I often wonder, is the story I intend to tell the world the story I really want them to know.

Beyond that, I wonder about my future. I wonder about the dreams that I think of every time I listen to music and think about what life would be like if I hit the writing jackpot of having a best seller. And I wonder of a simple life. A life spent on my own, doing the things that normal people do, spending my days working and writing, every now and then having the dream that I once had that I would be great and people would would know my name as they might remember recent authors like Dan Brown or Stephanie Meyer. I wonder what I would be doing with my life while I’m writing and working on another story that I will probably spend years writing and perfecting.

While it’s not a sad thing to think about one’s future, it can become overwhelming to wonder about so much and wonder even more about how soon you might actually get to that point. It’s even more of a wonder to think that even if you get to that part of your life, is that really where you were meant to end up? With all the talents and abilities that we’re born with and we never use, do we ever really end up where we truly belong? Do we ever really find the place in the world we’re meant to spend our days?

And when the world is just too much to handle anymore, when the questions of my destiny and my future are just too much to hold onto in my mind, I look over to the corner of my desk. There, looking at me through his spyglass is my companion. The little teddy bear in his boat trying to find the place to leave his treasure. I play his song and realize that the world is indeed a small place with many questions we never know the answer to until the time comes that they need answering. But the journey that we take to find them will determine if the answers we get were the ones we were hoping we’d find.

“The journey home will be rough, Little Bear. Guard safe your treasures as I will guard safe my dreams of your final destination.”

Remember Me When the Ink Fades

Maybe it’s the writer in me that is always coming up with the scenes in my head that look like scenes from movies I might have seen before, but I don’t think of it as a bad thing. They might come in handy one day when I need a visual image.

One that sticks out the most is the opening scene to a movie about me. You see, life in itself a huge movie that we’re constantly writing the script for someone else to read one day. The writers of the world have the major advantage because we’re actually keeping notes.

My movie opens up like this…

The sky is mostly clear with the presence of several puffy clouds trying desperately to climb higher but to no avail.

On a paved road, in between two fields of freshly plowed land, drives a black, sports-car with the top down. The leather interior is completely untouched by age. The two-seat car has room for the driver, a young man with black hair, sunglasses to hide his deep brown eyes, casually dressed, with a smile on his face as if he’s driving towards a destination he’s been waiting to get to his whole life.

And in the passenger seat is a leather bound notebook. It’s the only companion he’s taken with him that has never left his side and was always willing to hear his side of the story at a moment’s notice.

In front of them, the road is leading straight to a major city. Skyscrapers are few, highways are clearly visible, and it’s free of memories he’d rather leave behind.

The driver reaches to the center of the dash and clicks on the radio and it begins to play “Forever Young” by Rod Stewart. He takes one look over to the book on his right, then to the road in front of him. A grin crosses his face as the camera leaves him and watches the car drive off in the direction of the city.

The song continues to play and the title “As He Once Wrote” appears on the screen.

You can use your imagination as who you could see playing me. I haven’t really gotten that far in my fantasy. Besides, I’m only 24. I’ve not written anything worth while that people would actually remember me for. And even if I had, it would still be one short script.

I’m pretty sure it’s healthy to imaging myself being a great writer one day. I’m sure that even if I don’t make millions of dollars, which writer’s usually never do, I will have gotten the one thing that every writer wants. Immortality. The ability to transcend generation after generation. When the story we tell is just as powerful or as meaningful as the day it was published and read for the very first time.

Even if I write a horrible story, I want to write the most horrible story that was ever written. Why? Because you will still be speaking my name long after I’m gone as the example of how not to write a book. It doesn’t matter if the book was any good, the point is to never be forgotten.

Maybe that’s what I’ve been trying to do all my life. I’ve met people from all over the world and have made friends in all corners of the globe thanks to the Internet. Most of those people know that I write. Whether they think I’m a good or great writer is still up to them but they know that much about me. Perhaps it’s my talent that is asking that I don’t let myself go to waste by not using it to create something that will leave my mark on the world? It’s the essence of every writer to write something great. Great enough that he’ll get his name noticed just once and that would be sufficient for him. But that’s not what I want for me.

I want my writings to make people stop and wonder. Wonder if how they always thought of something is the way they should keep thinking about it after they’ve read the words I’ve written. Where I can challenge the thoughts of millions and reach those would would say, “Archangel wrote ‘(insert future quoted text here)’ and now people stop and wonder if that’s the way things should be.”

THAT’S WHAT I WANT! I said to myself a long time ago that I wasn’t going to do this for the money. While money can buy me the things that I need and the short term wants, it will never fill the void in my soul that needs to be place by the thing that I feel I need to do with this life. My very existence needs to be validated by someone other than those who can physically see me or talk to me. I need the validation from the people who haven’t met me but have read my works. My soul cries out for them to read the words I pen and remember who it was that wrote them.

Money will never buy my destiny.