Why does this happen to me? I have no one to blame, not even myself. I know this much. I claimed so boldly that this depression would not get to me as it has gotten to my mother and her mother and her mother’s mother, and in the whole family line. I had hoped that since I was a male, the line would be unaffected by the depressions that commonly afflicted the women.

No such luck, it seems. Is it finally time to give up my tirade against medication? I can take medicine, even happily, if it is a cure. But when it is a “workaround,” it becomes galling to even consider… I have always imagined what life would be like if civilization and society suddenly crumbled and all of our services, including medication and pharmaceutical manufacturing, ceased. Where would I be then? Would I become clinically insane? Would I die?

To be dependent upon something inanimate to survive happily is, actually, a horrifying thought to me. I do not want to depend on something to make me happy. I want to be happy in a pure, unadulterated way. I want to be happy naturally, because of me and my thoughts and feelings. Not because of some stimulated, drug induced happiness that is altering the chemistry of my brain in order to “normalize” me in the sense of what society labels as “normal.”

But I don’t want to be sad anymore. I don’t want to hurt. I don’t want to question my existence and my life anymore. I want to have motivation beyond that of waking up and reading or watching TV programs to escape my reality. I don’t want to be anxious anymore, and scared of groups of people. I hate having moments of perfect lucidity and happiness, where I can be the wonderful, social butterfly loved and adored by people all around me, and the next, too afraid and meek to look into the eyes of someone I know well. How awful it is to feel such a burden.

It seems the only way I can stave off the depression is by keeping busy, by having tasks, and thus, interest in what I am doing. To have something to look forward to and be satisfied in. Those things become harder and harder. I am most fulfilled when I attend church. I do not know why, but it is the energy I feel there, and the love. Depression is also often at its worst when I leave church after services. Often times it is at its least when I leave church, feeling fulfilled. I do not know how to stave it off.

I just do not know how.

I wish so badly to do it without being medicated. I do not wish to be like my mother, whom of which I love more dearly than words can tell. She depends on medication to reach any semblance of happiness. To see her when she is without her medications is to see death walking. The times she has tried to stop taking them it nearly destroyed her. The times when she cannot get a refill quickly enough were similar. It is horrifying to watch her degrade without medication, and now her medications kill her in new ways while I watch her waste away into nothingness, so tiny and frail and without strength. Her personality is wonderful and full of vigor, and it is the only thing that sets off her physical condition, but her medication, while helping to make her mind more happy, destroys her body in the process.

Give and take, take and give. There must be a balance, I suppose. There is no cure-all. I just do not know what to do anymore to be happy. Convincing myself works…until I think about how I have to convince myself. Maybe this is how everyone feels? But I lack so much more, like the motivation. And I have so much fear to do anything in life.

I just do not know.

The table of food signifies the harvest of the last years bounty. The people signify our family and friends. The home we celebrate in signifies the shelter and warmth that we have available to us. Likewise, in a religious sense, the bread and wine signify the Body and Blood of Christ that we are thankful to take within our being.

The holiday is oft misconstrued these days, however. Too many people think that the holiday is centered around the meal for the wrong reasons. There is a “feeling” of togetherness, but without recognition, it is just another day and another party. There are millions upon millions of homeless, starving, poverty stricken and diseased people in our world, and countless thousands in our own nation. Many of them seemingly have nothing to be thankful for. Certainly I cannot tell them what they SHOULD be thankful for. But yet somehow, those that I met in the streets of our own major city, Portland, are more thankful for their lives them me.

I was complaining the other day because I overheard a woman talking about a vacation her and her husband were going on with their children this thanksgiving. She was excited, notably, and was telling her friend on the telephone that they were going to try out “Oahu this time, because they always do Maui” when they go to Hawaii. She made it sound boring! Then, she was talking about a secluded vacation rental they got a steal for, that was ONLY $500 per night! I was appalled. I could only think, “I can only go on vacation to a house maybe once every 2 to 3 years about, and only if the price of the house is LESS than 150 per night.” Even then, I am suffering.

Only days later did it dawn on me. I am this middle class person, that has a home for shelter, food for nourishment, electricity and gas for heat and myriad other items. I have a family that loves me and I can love in turn, and friends for the same reason. I have a job, and places to go if something goes awry in my life.

And then, I thought further: These homeless people in this land and our world abroad can make do with even less than that, further separating them from my middle class and the upper classes. A homeless person is thankful for get a $5 bill to live off of for a day or more.

It also caused me to think about this problem we are having with the separation of classes. Some of those homeless people have turned into entire homeless families, who were once like me and lost everything in this economy. Perhaps that has something to do with what “Occupy” protesters are protesting. But I am not talking about that right now.

The fact of the matter is: When I was in Portland, not only one, but several homeless people asked for money boldly, but when I gave them what I could, they were thankful. For those I had nothing left for, they were still thankful that I had paid attention to them. How sad is that? To them, attention is currency – to be seen is worth something. To be cared for, and shown a bit of compassion.

When I give to a homeless person, I do not think about what my money will be used for. To give freely to the homeless and the poor is a right thing to do to me, and it makes me feel more comfortable that the homeless person in question now HAS something. So many people in my life have told me that “homeless people make their living begging for alms. They probably have more money than you!” That may be true, but how am I supposed to know that? Should I stop giving to the homeless what I can when I can just because of that worry? How much does it hurt me to give away some change? A dollar? Five dollars? At least we are putting money back into our own economy!

But the point is: I had the money, and I realized it almost too late. Ultimate thanksgiving: The ability to have something that you can give away to someone else. Even those homeless beggars I met gave something back to me: Appreciation and clarity. Human decency shows the intricate pattern of love that exists here. Hatred and scorn, malice and spite are foreign to our existence and only develop into a blanket that can smother the goodness and kindness. But since it is foreign and separate, we can remove the blanket and even throw it away. I cannot speak for the ages past, but it seems that more people in this age have made those blankets and drape it around their shoulders. However, more interestingly, there are also more people who are clad only in love and kindness in this age than any other.

I am thankful for human decency, human kindness, human resilience, human ingenuity, human compassion and human love. At our society’s lowest tier, we seem to have more than we do at our highest tiers. I will not say that there is none that exists, but it took me travelling to the bottom of our societal structure to see it.

Life is good, God is good, and all that there is in our society shows that we try, even if the most of us who exist do not have the power of immediate change…we certainly have the power and utilize it over the period of time.

What a great place to die, honestly. I imagine that if the beach, walking with my soul-mate, were the last thing I would see with my mortal eyes I would have died a great death. Of course trying to get past the fact that I left all of my loved ones behind to fend for themselves, I might have a problem with that…

But Dick knew that his family is fine, strong and full of love. They will carry on without him, though they will miss him. More so in these first days of his passing, and eventually coming to grips or terms. There will be moments where grief will be renewed, and moments when grief will be even worse than on the day of his burial. But they are strong and Dick knows that.

Look at me, writing a eulogy. In all honesty, I don’t know anything. I don’t know how to comprehend his death. The fact of the matter is this: I did not know him that well. He was an intimidating man, at least when I first met him. I met him through the choir, where Kathy and Craig would support me in playing and directing. When I got to know him and he got to know me, I loved the man like a parent. Sure, I didn’t see him except for the occasional Sunday when I was there.

Not this last Sunday, but the Sunday before…October 16th. I played because Kathy asked me to swap with her. The first thing Dick said to me when I arrived was about how much he appreciated me and how much he cared for me being in the choir and the church, and complimented me on my talents with piano and singing. I shook his hand at peacetime and he said to me “Peace be with you.” I replied the same.

Then on Tuesday he is suddenly dead. Just gone, from this mortal coil taken by the power that created him and his life. He was almost 74 years old. He has lived a good and long life. I had no idea him and his wife were that old. They looked fit to me, in their late 50′s. Who knew I was almost 20 years off?

But he is gone. And even I, who did not truly know him, feel a tear; a rending that I cannot seem to come to grips with. I know that I will, but I am still in a daze. I sang my heart out today at his funeral, and I looked across the way frequently at his wife: Another model of strength. She did not have tears streaming down her face. Perhaps she was like me, in a daze. Or perhaps she cried them out. I have no doubt she is in pain, but I tried to mimic her resolve. She knows her husband does not want her to mourn for him, but simply to remember him and cherish the love and life they had together.

My tears come when a particular song comes on my iPhone or from my car. I can relate to music, and through music can my emotion bloom. My music is unconventional for someone my age.

Something else that irks me, but I also oddly understand…Dick found out he had cancer in 2008, and the outlook for his survival was grim at best. Not only did he use his strength to have the surgeries needed to remove the cancer from his body, but he beat it in completely remission 3 years later. From the sounds of the eulogy, one of his sons stated that his cancer brought the family closer together than anyone thought possible. Dick and Marlene celebrated their 50th anniversary in August, happy as clams, with the whole family present at the coast.

It is such a lovely story, I have no words that can convey my feelings. Though for Dick to die so soon after his battle with Cancer to an unrelated heart attack causes me to want to scream “It’s not fair!”

But I have to remember: Dick does not care anymore what is fair. My faith causes me to believe fully that he is with Christ in Heaven, and those friends and family who preceded him in death. But I want to still scream that it isn’t fair that he is dead when his whole family is still here to suffer.

But through suffering comes grace. I loved him like a dad, and I feel that more now than I have in the past because he is gone and never will I get to know him more from HIM in this life.

I will see him upon my death, and he will greet me like a father greets a child. I hope this hole fills soon, for I hate how it makes me feel selfish and my own loss of him in life. I am sure it will. But I will grieve in my own way. And I will honor him by staying in church with the choir, singing forever.

I am not so far away from my childhood to remember the joys of the holiday. The only day of the year where the multitudes of sweets and treats, scares and thrills, costumes and friends would provide for as much anticipation as entertainment on the night-of. I do not miss it anymore – the candy and the travelling, I mean. It seems the transition is near completion. I dress up on Halloween, but I now give OUT candy, while spending time cozily indoors. Now I can enjoy the enjoyment from those children who reflect my childhood and the childhood of humanity.

Such carefree nature provides a momentary contentment for us adults in the world, I wager. At least most of us who are viewing, in depth, the meaning of carefree living. When children can go about from home to home with friends and family, the largest thought on their minds being “Where can I next score some confections,” it shows to us that we live in a world, at least partially, that is not always warring and filled with poverty and horror. Certainly those things exist despite the joys we face, but these simply joys, such as a child’s happiness on Halloween, is a wonderful respite from the horrors of this world. Certainly we (those of us in this position) do not have to eternally face the hell that is poverty, starvation, disease, corruption, crime and rampant lacking?

I have always questioned myself: Am I failing as a human being because I find moments of happiness in my life where others have none? I can assure you: Down that path lies only madness. It is not right to suffer where we do not need to suffer. It is not better to “share in the suffering” of others where it can be avoided. There are so many people in this world, like me, who feel guilt for being fortunate in life.

What can I do? That has always been the question. I cannot do much, in all honesty, as a single individual. What can I do that is small then? I have given money; I have given time and effort; I have sponsored children in failing families. But yet there is a feeling of expectation that I must suffer in order to atone for my fortune in life.

It took me a long time to figure it out: I do not have to suffer or atone for anything. I think all this time, those people who have claimed that my lack of suffering makes me into a lesser person have misconstrued what true suffering is. There are two types of suffering. Before I explain them, let me state something: These two types of suffering are not bound to Christianity. They are not bound to any faith, religious or spirituality in the belief of greater things. They are bound only to the human condition.

The first type of suffering is the most predominantly noticed among our fellow humanity. Physical suffering. Physical suffering entails starvation, exposure, disease, poverty, physical or mental disablement or anything else that afflicts us as physical beings in a physical way.

The second type of suffering is the most predominant among humanity but the least acknowledged. Spiritual suffering. I cannot find a better term for it. Perhaps “mental suffering?” Anyway, this suffering entails the inability to deal with a situation mentally or spiritually, the inability to accept afflictions, the inability to disperse negativity regarding a particular cause and the inability to come to terms with loss or lacking. This type of suffering often goes hand in hand with physical suffering. However, physical suffering can be lessened a great deal when the spiritual suffering associated with it is negated or dispersed entirely.

An example of this human condition: When someone is starving, poverty stricken or suffers from constant exposure, the person who faces this suffering with a closed mind and full of self pity, remorse, anger, hatred and blames others for their affliction are now suffering doubly, if not more. They cannot come to terms with this, they can find no contentment in their situation, nor can they generally act to change this way of being. Often, people who live and think this way are full of excuses for their conditions.

On the other hand, the person who is starving, poverty stricken or suffers from constant exposure and faces it with an open mind, accepting of the reasons behind it and a willingness to change their situation any way they can, blaming no one except for circumstance lives, oft times, a happy, content life. Their suffering is reduced only to physical suffering, lacking the mental and spiritual suffering that often accompanies this.

In my journey through life, I have noticed that these people are beholden to no one except themselves. I have met happy homeless people (though few and far between) that have refused my aid not due to some misplaced dignity, but because they have found a way to make due. I have found those who have accepted my aid not because they feel they deserve it, but because they have accepted the flaws that limn their lives and know that they need what I give freely. These people have made me feel good about myself, and often give me more than I have given them because of their almost ultimate positivity in life. It was surprising, to say the least.

There are other forms of mental suffering such as grief or mourning. People of high standing or of wealth and power suffer, but their suffering is internal to them. These peopel may be afflicted with loneliness, loss, isolation, externally misconstrued conceptions or depression gone unnoticed. Anywhere from our people in government to movie stars and music idols, this afflicts the highest of people. Similarly it affects all other forms of people, such as the middle and lower classes.

But yet this world focuses on physical suffering among all things. This world attributes mental suffering first to physical suffering, second to internal mechanism. Mental suffering should be focused upon more often and brought into the light of day above that of physical suffering. I do not mean to say that the world should stop helping those who are dying every day of the elements and lack thereof. I am saying that our people should look into themselves first and see the suffering that is internal to them and attempt to negate. The questions I ask myself: Why am I suffering? What is causing me pain? Can it be stopped? Can I look within myself and find the logic of my mind? Can I straighten emotion from a tangles mass of brier and thorn? Can my physical suffering be negated if I change the way I am thinking about it?

We are still animals, though sentient. We have instincts that have evolved with our being. The the key word is sentience. We have a marvelous ability to overcome our own instincts so that we can better ourselves and our living conditions in our own evolution. We have an ability to overcome suffering by changing the ways that we think, if it is possible. I cannot guarantee it will always be possible. I have tried in my past and found that sometimes I delude myself more than face my “demons,” so to speak. It is true, sometimes suffering has to take its own course. But most of our suffering in life, at least those of us that are not found wanting so much, is trivial and can be negated with a neutral or positive changed in our thoughts.

I do not have to suffer the physical or mental suffering of those in this world who are afflicted with uncontrollable conditions. My suffering for them comes from my inability to do greater things for them and the knowledge that I cannot always make things perfect in an imperfect world.

So instead, I do what I can and suffer knowing that those people in this world who are the best among us are often the most lacking.

All I can do, internally, is aspire to be like them, to hold the silent dignity they possess and refuse, as they would, to suffer needlessly.

Am I the only one this prejudice scares? No, I know I am not. In fact, the way I see it there are more people in the world that are neutral about this subject than there are people who voice open opposition. However, like the media these opposing people have the “loud speaker” on when they talk.

It doesn’t scare me because I think everyone should be accepted. It scares me because it is a weak point in our human civilization. I want our human society to be strong, every link working together to form a lasting chain of accepting and respecting humanity. The prejudice coming from the homophobic part of society creates a mass of weak links in our chain. Look back in time: The racism against people of different colored skin tones was a major time of weakness in our society – So much decay in our basic humanity came from that unrelenting and unwarranted hatred.

Granted, that was a time of great strength, as well. The black culture, especially, learned a confidence that rivals that of the mass exodus of Hebrews from Egyptian rule. A positivity was gained, great and influential leaders were born from both the high and the common and lowest men and a spirit was instilled within a culture that spread to gain respect, acceptance and eventually to be embraced by fellow humanity. Remember, there is no “Black Race” or “Indian Race” or “Japanese Race” or any type or race other than the “Human Race.”

But yet, now, this gay culture strives to do what others have done: The oppressed black culture did it. The oppression of women in society was abolished by women standing up for their rights. There have been many hundreds of these revolutions, albeit some with many valiant attempts before success. These were freedom revolutions.

Isn’t that such a fantastic word? Freedom. It feels so good to say it, and it gives one an air of contentment when they really think about how that word applies to them. Many people in this world have learned and forgotten the reasons they are free. Some do not even think about it. Worse yet, some do not appreciate the fact that they are free. We have soldiers, God bless them, who fight and die every day for our freedom as a country and a people. But on the sidelines, we have people who fight for our political freedoms, from those politicians who are not corrupt to our local spokespeople, who stand up and fight with words their demands for our freedoms in all that we do.

So now another oppression has the focus of the world: The homosexual culture. Is it even a culture? Some people say it’s a life-choice. Some say you are born predetermined. Some say that the events in your early life lead you to the determination of your sexuality in youth and adulthood.

I think that it is just a way of being. Isn’t it? There are no choices: No one sits down and says, “I’m deciding that I am going to be gay now.” That seems silly to me. Predetermination makes more sense than a “decision,” but I have no physical evidence that, while in creation, the cosmos say, “This person will be homosexual.” Eventual determination of sexuality through early life seems even more likely, especially considering events one has in life that leads to the eventual culmination of thoughts and feelings and chemical reactions. Perhaps it is a combination of things, or one thing unconsidered.

But who cares about how one person determined their sexuality in their life? The determination is as unpreventable as death after life, cut and dry. When someone is straight, gay or bisexual, they are what they are. Something that scares me more than the prejudice and the hatred for these people is the fact that “recovery centers” exist for their “illness.” Such that prejudice exists that people can twist their hatred and their prejudice into a semblance of “caring for someone so much that they wish to help them be more like them.”

I think the root cause of this particular prejudice stems farther back in time than any other racism or prejudice. It goes so far back that it has been ingrained into the minds of generations through religion and religious convictions that those who “fraternize” with the same sex are damned by God. Scarily enough, there is writing that supports this view. But what is even more scary is that no one has bothered to interpret this text and no one has bothered to read it in context for alternate meanings.

I do not think the bible is taken into account anymore, for the most part, anyway, in regards to the prejudiced portion of humanity. In life, they have been told by those also prejudiced that being “gay” is wrong, and they have been told from childhood. Since their young minds have been set into their ways, the rest of their minds are build around these prejudices and hatreds. I guarantee you that when someone tells you that it is wrong to be gay and quotes from the bible, they do not understand what they are saying. The bible is their conscious excuse, but more unexplainable is the subconscious excuse that they are so ingrained with an aversion to homosexuality that they reach out and grab the first literal reasoning that can be found in their conscious mind.

To go even farther into the bad…You’ve heard of “Sheople?” “Sheep” + “People” / Sheep People or “Sheople.” Urban Dictionary defines it correctly: “People who are unable to think for themselves and simply follow the crowd.” Sheople are the people in life who follow what popular opinion suggests they follow. These sheople are generally neutral in the understandings of a certain thing, such a homosexual prejudice (homophobia), and only raise their voices with the masses around them, even if that means the condemnation of a particular set of people who feel a certain way. It is a destructive force, like a plague or an infection, wreaking havoc upon the efforts of others. If there ever was an “illness” in the world, it should be labeled as “sheoplism.”

I could speculate that those who are homophobic are not comfortable in their “displayed” sexuality. When someone approached with the topic becomes defensive, offhanded, angry, resentful or disgusted, these seem to be clear signs. But this could also be the ingrained hatred through their generational family line interfering with their basic ability to reason.

Disownment is possibly one of the worst case scenarios of homosexual prejudice. When a friend disowns another friend for being homosexual, it is a terrible thing to behold, both because one loses a friend, but more because one loses a friend for such a reason as trivial feeling a certain way about intimacy with another human being. The worst type of disownment is family disownment. Most families or family members that disown another disown due to religious convictions. Others disown due to that ingrained generational hatred. In any case, the process is a terrible thing.

I am no theologian, mind you. The bible itself may mean what it literally says. But the people who claim to know the “truth” of it are only men, and there have only ever been only men. I am a believer in God, a Christian man, and a Catholic man. I may be damned for my views, but I cannot and will never have the authority to judge another living human being for the way they live, for how they feel, for what they are or what they choose to do. I do not believe that the God I believe in would condemn another human being for feeling love for another human being. Likewise, since I do not have the ability to accurately judge a human being, I would rather befriend one, despite the trivial consideration of their sexuality, and know them for who they are. Shunning someone for their sexuality seems more a sin to me than embracing them as a brother or sister in our “creation.” I do not believe that a human being can change their sexuality on a whim. I think they can pretend, and I think they can live a lie. But sexuality is unchanging, and those who I have seen attempt to live a lie lived a life of secret shame and unsurmountable sadness. I’d guess that the hardest step is to accept yourself first, and then hope for the world to come next.

My heart goes out to the homosexual portion of humanity now and their struggles to win the simple freedoms of living in a society that that gives, in return, simple acceptance. I am not a supporter of how a person feels, for that is trivial. A person feels how a person feels. I know that great feats will be gained in this revolution, and great things will happen. I know that pain will ensue for many, and hatred abound in the roiling forge of these new links being created to strengthen our chain of humanity. I AM a supporter of the strong chain of humanity.  I AM a support of equal rights. I AM a supporter of freedom. I AM a support of an unbroken humanity. I AM a supporter of an enlightened humanity. I AM a supporter of HUMANITY.

But as I sit here, I smell that age old soap, dial. Always in stores, never able to buy just one bar unless there was something special going on. You had to buy it in packs of like 20. Okay, maybe not that many, but you’d still have to buy it in at least 4-packs. Sometimes they would be white. Sometimes they would be blue. Sometimes they would be blue striated with white. Most of the time they were old fashioned yellow soap bricks with a generic fragrance. No matter the fragrance, though, you knew it was dial. In or out of the shower. And they would NEVER deviate from that color scheme. I’ve never seen Dial any color except those three I have listed.

One thing is for certain. It scours me clean. Remembering all of those other experiences in the shower right now, I’ve always felt a bit cleaner with dial. However my hands are always super dry when I get done, and usually I have to find some lotion if my dry hands become uncomfortable. But using other soaps have always left me feeling scummy and just plain yucky. Not all the time. Most of the time I can’t remember. But I’ve never felt that way with dial! I am pleased to be clean, and more pleased that I have access to facilities to get clean.

Too often have I taken advantage of such a simple thing as a shower, or even more simply as running, clean water. I have taken advantage of simple soap for too long. Such small things keep me so comfortable, and undoubtedly add to the comfort levels of those around me (providing that I’m not stinking of the air-space).

Taking things for granted moves a lot farther away. Sometimes I sit down and really appreciate the fact that I really appreciate things. But when I find myself appreciating myself so much, I’m really just taking away from my general appreciation of what I have in life. Were my creature comforts taken from me, I might possibly go mad. But I know that it is not true. The man who truly appreciates what he has in his life will be the first to be able to live without those things. However, I have found that appreciation of those things in life verses the fear of losing those selfsame things is quite different. Many people claim that they appreciate the small things in life, when truly they only fear the loss of those things.

Granted, fear is a form of appreciation. Fear is a form of reverence, too. The fear of loss, especially. But if you truly appreciate something, you not only revere its presence in your life but you learn that its true value is only as great as what you make it. You learn that it is no longer required in your life to allow you to live comfortably; that it is a triviality that can be lived without. Certainly this does not mean that you should shun the item! But you now appreciate it while you have it and no longer depend upon its presence.

That causes a transcendence of sorts, when you get to that level of thought. Now you appreciate the items you do have in your life in a different way than you once did. The reverence changes to encompass a greater picture of the things that you have and utilize. You start to think of other people who do not have what you have, who do not experience what you experience. Some people, when they reach this area of thought, shed their worldly items and become what others might call hippies, and some might call Buddhist monks (that’s a joke, but not far off from the truth). It isn’t so much an ascension of thought (or maybe it is) but more of transcendence of thought-processes. When you have this ability to appreciate the worldly things in life, you learn to appreciate those things normally unseen and unnoticed.

The sunrise and the sunset; a gentle, caressing breeze of coolness on a hot summer’s day; the pale moon’s glow, with its cool light; the stars in the sky and their fathomless depth and mystery; birdsong and the sounds of life all around; the color green; the color blue; all of the radiance of all colors in nature and outside of nature; green grass, and how it feels beneath your bare feet; the sound of water, from a river, or an ocean or any movement; the smell of flowers; the thrill of a dream – or a nightmare, a reminder of your life; the thoughts of the coming day, a vacation planned, or an outing, or a date (especially the first).

These things and so much more, one learns to appreciate with those first baby-steps of worldly appreciation for small things. Eventually that appreciation becomes reverence and one learns to revere the world around them, and everything it has to offer. Eventually, and ultimately, this reverence, given enough time and space to grow, becomes an insatiable love and thirst for life. The trivialities of our own personal worlds starts to shed itself like a snakeskin molting from its former owner – the little negative and nasty things seem less negative and nasty; we stop focusing on them when all we can do is appreciate and revere and love the things in our lives that are as equally uncontrollable as the aforementioned items.

Negativity is powerful, and mighty powerful in its difficulty to curb. It takes only a seed of positive thought, though, to fall into the cracks of our awareness and to sprout into a fast growing tree of appreciation. It can be made to grow swiftly, towering above and through our awareness with many limbs, each containing the many fruits of the aspects in this world that we can appreciate.

We cannot always, of course, keep the darkness at bay, nor can we have a continuous smile on our faces for all that is life. There will be rough patches, and cloudy days that may even rain. There may even be a storm. But the wonder of this transcendent form of thought is that there will always be shelter beneath the branches of that tree grown from our awareness during the deluge of those happenstance days under the darkening shadows of those clouds of negative thought. We can emerge when it is done and once again stand in the light of the love of life.

You can decide. After writing this, I still smell dial soap. But it is no longer such an ordinary smell: It is now a good smell; a reminder of a comfort in life that I can appreciate having.

I feel so small in a universe filled with so much; a universe so vast that its size booms with the cosmic energy of the unfathomable and unknowable existence of all things. To know a thing is to be a thing, eh? Am I a universe unto myself? Am I of this universe, an avatar? Am I of this universe as a small piece? Or is all of what I see and feel and experience just as much something as it is something?

Such rambling – I am imperfect, at the very least. I know so little, and I find that I prefer it this way, knowing little. But I still hunger for knowledge. I hunger to know what it is to be so alive and so part of something. I hunger to know what is under the stones on the beach, to know what that delicacy tastes like, to know what it is to breath inside of a cloud made fiery by the setting sun, to know what it is to fully and completely immerse myself into an oasis of unknown and unexperienced calm and tranquility on a small, undiscovered island.

I wish to know the pain that is felt when love is shorn from me like the branches of a felled tree, to know the horror of a terrifying moment, caught in a web like a spider, to know the melancholy of a life after the death of a loved one, to know the depression of nothingness and misunderstanding of the world around me.

I wish to know revelations, clarity and epiphany. I wish to know the joy that comes from “finding out” and “being the first to know;” “being the last to know.”

I wish to know what it is like to be a stone, to be a tree, to be a planet, or a star. TO be dark matter, to be a void, to be a black hole or a quasar. To be small and to be large.

I wish to simply know: to experience everything.

That it what I wish. I wish to experience good, bad, neutral and everything in every degree between and beyond.

I wish to know.

But I am imperfect, small and insignificant. It does not depress me, but it daunts me: all that is. I have experienced some, and I do not wish to go on a mission to seek just to say that I have sought and obtained. I wish to live and to learn by “finding out.” I love life, and all that is in it. I do not always feel this way, but under all things this is the prevalent feeling.

The love that I spoke of has not left me. But it has transformed and morphed into something new in relation to this person that has so captivated me. I no longer feel as I once did, nor do I feel as I did when I sent that long letter. Those feelings are not dead, but as I said they are transformed. I do not know yet how to explain them, but they are not what they were. They are not obsessive, nor are they romantic. They are not love in the way of a relationship or a desire for a relationship. But they are definitely something. I can attest that I have these selfsame feeling for those I hold in close friendship, and that pleases me very much.

Another friend to add to the list of friends who are compatible with my being and I with theirs. I wish to share my desires to simply “know” with this person. But then, I have always wanted that in all stages of my feelings for this person.

I do not think that I will speak of this person again in my journal, unless to recount an experience had with this individual. Since this individual does not invade and flood my thoughts anymore than anyone else I know, I find that my mind has more room to think of things as of old times.

I am pleased.

The moon has now traveled slightly to the right of my vision.

Those that do create a spark within my emotions always seem to burn out a niche for themselves, most of the time without any knowledge of it. I am basically asexual when it comes to thinking about relationships and love, but I’ll admit that I have equal attractions to women and men of all sorts. I may not want to jump their bones or make love to them, or even have a relationship, but the attractions that I have for women and men are comparable to each other, nullifying the importance of “opposite” or “same” sex to me.

I would say that I have an affectionate spirit, though I think that I have to be in the right atmosphere and have the right feelings to be physically affectionate. But I do love people, and some I feel for more than others. I, of course, feel for everyone’s basic life equal feelings of compassion…But for the higher part of individual people, there is something to be said about the special attractions their beings create within myself.

I am attracted to a lot of people. And as I said, in a lot of different ways. Jeremy’s party came and went like a candle, bright burning in its time, burning down to the wax nub. I met several of his friends, all of which were wonderful to me and accepting and kind, as I am shy. Their personalities allowed me to open up, which I appreciated.

There was one in particular who attracted my attention, as he was so very kind and caring. He had genuine interest in what I had to say and in conversing with me. I do not know him well, but you can judge quite a bit off of those initial feelings. I was so enamored that I kept finding myself glued near him. It was his personality, his aura, his projection and his very being that attracted me. Isn’t that how it works for everyone?

No, I do not wish to jump his bones, either. But this is how good friendship starts out, and perhaps beyond that something else; but I do not look so far into the future from one moment’s touch. I was recently in love, and that took quite a while to build up to that point…something I never thought that I was experience. It is the way of the world, how one develops feelings for friends and loved ones.

I appreciate this quality in myself, and I appreciate these attractions that I can get only from opening my mind to the greater part of a person’s being. Thanks to meeting this Jeffrey, he [accidentally] showed me that I have this marvelous ability to enjoy attractions in every form.

Aside from that, this person still wants to be my friend. I could not have asked for more. This person left the company on Friday, the 20th. I knew it was time, finally, to write my letter. It is on my journal here on wordpress, but it is private. I am willing to show it to interested parties, but I doubt there will be any of those. Jessica, my one reader, has already seen it and even provided suggestions prior to my sending it, which were immensely helpful.

Throughout this process, I have had friends like Jessica helping me through my ordeal. Others like Sarah (my other half), and Trevor, my good and long-time friend in Florida, have been ultimately helpful and supportive in every way. I am thankful and appreciative beyond any measure of words. I love them all, and through their support I can say, with an open heart, that they love me in kind.

Rejection is still a sad and bitter thing. I can be thankful that it was not worse, and I can be thankful for this other wishes to maintain a friendship after the fact, but, as I am discovering, the feelings don’t just “go away.” In fact, I feel they are as strong as they were. The only difference now is that I have no confusion as to what this other person feels. Likewise, I no longer feel awkward around this person or when I talk to them. The lie I once lived walking next to them is now made a truth and it is, as the youngsters say, hella better than it used to be.

Plus now my deeper, more romantic feelings had a chance to dissolve. I hope that they do sooner rather than later, but I feel I will always have a deep love for this person that goes beyond even romance – more that it is a deep admiration, respect and need to see this person come to goodness throughout life.

Things can only get better from here now, right?

It is like this person is dead – or rather like knowing this person is going to die. Can you imagine what that feels like? To feel so…fully…for a person and you know they are going to leave your plane of existence? I, of course, know that they are not going to die – but I still can’t help but compare this person’s leaving as a sort-of death. Think about it – is this not similar? They are leaving behind a part of their life, never to return again. They are moving forward and creating something new for themselves – blossoming as a flower does in it’s glory to one day again die and blossom again into a yet newer flower.

My heart is rend from its protective shell and left exposed upon the bare earth under the harsh light of the unforgiving sun of truth. I have both failed and succeeded in my ventures – to experience certain things and to fail experiencing others. How I wish for so much more for this person…for myself…I could have loved so greatly and so fully and this person would have wonted for naught in all thing. But that is not the way of the world, nor how these things work in the greater scheme that is both random and structured.

But this person will know my feelings – I have prepared a letter that may destroy our friendship and cause this person to loathe me because of what I feel, but I cannot stand by and let them slip through my fingers all unknowing. They know I am attracted, but they do not know the extent. Upon this person’s leaving I shall present this letter in their near future.

But still - My heart is torn, and I lament this day.

(Jessica, I wish you to read the letter before I send it.)