A bit of a ramble

     What does it mean to live? Is existence the same thing? The dictionary seems to think so. I am not so sure. I don't want to be alive, I want to live, and that is a verb. That means it requires action, more than just our automatic functions. More than just breathing. More then just listening to our hearts sputter their missteps into the early morning. I want to feel the wind, I want to smile, I want all of this to make sense. I want to not feel so alone in a world of almost seven billion people.

     I will apologize now, because today, I am a bit down, but I know some of you are too and I know my thoughts echo your own. I get tired. I get worried about health, finances and a million other things I have no business worrying over. I try to be a help to people almost every day, even if it is just a smile, because that is all the energy I can muster. That smile, may be the only one that person sees today. It is not a mask, just an affirmation that we both exist and feel and have worth. That is what these words are too. Just an electric note from a thousand miles away that you exist, you matter, and you are not alone. That someone who will probably never meet you understands what you are going through, or at least won't judge and try to. In an electronic age, distance is nothing and we all know the distance between two people in a room can be light years apart farther than this. I know that God is with you too, so you are never alone. When you cry, when you lay on the floor and can't go on. When you stand in front of a bottle and fight a thousand wars in the span of a heart beat, you are not alone. Even though everything inside you screams that you are. So please just know that and I hope it brings some small modicum of comfort to you in your time of need.

     Those of you who know me from the heart board, a truly wonderful group of caring people, know that I just got fed up living like this and I think you have too, no matter what the 'this' means to you. I want to LIVE and so I declared total war on this. That means finding and taking the right meds the doctor prescribes, that means therapy because a pill won't change a hard wired behavior in your brain and that means going to church and speaking to my God and Savior, whom I adore. And it means eating right. And while it works, there are still days like today, when I can hear angles weeping for the wasted time, the missed opportunity and what seems like an eternal struggle.

      But I won't give up. Knowing you haven't either, strengthens me and shares your power right back with me, and for that I thank you. No, I won't give up, and God willing, never will. There is too much at stake today for us to do that. And so even though I am so very tired of it all, I will go out. I will talk to myself in positive tones, I will feel the Sun and wind and I will remind myself to be thankful. I will take pictures to find the beauty I am seeking even when I live so near a dirty grungy city. And when I do find it I will share it with others. This is the verb live, fight, love. No one ever said it was going to be easy and no one said it would be fair that some go through this and others do not. It doesn't even bother me any more that this is happening to me, just as I don't feel guilty when someone else is going through it. Compassionate, yes. Guilty, no. We all have our fight and it is different for each of us. I refuse to begrudge someone who doesn't have to go through this. I am happy for them.

     So come with me today, there is no rule that says, today can't be the day that begins the change, that makes a leap forward, that clicks the synapse into place that you are worth it and loved and needed in this world. There is no law that says even if the day starts shitty, it must end that way or that even though we fight we can not live. So please live with me today. Please fight along side of me today, a thousand miles away but in the same struggle. Every step you take when your legs feel like lead, and your soul feels dead is not wasted. You are strengthened and each step proves you can do it. Just as you have a thousand times before.

     For me today is bad, but I still find my beauty and I still share it, when I can. Knowing you are doing the same makes it a bit easier to bear even if it makes me a little sad too. One day we will all be outside, in the Sun without worry or struggle. That is my dream, but like any dream it can't come true till we lift our hands to build the future we want. Be part of that with me.

God bless you all, you are not alone and thank you,

Frank

This is the beauty I found two days ago.