Marriage is a Connection of Souls
Mood:  happy
Topic: personal essay
Marriage is a Connection of Souls

It is only a piece of paper and a few words but it is a unification of souls. It’s more than love. It is the desire to care for one another under all conditions. As couples start their life together, there is the blinding romance. Being apart is almost unbearable. Then reality sets in.

At first the little things are ignored. You’re so happy with your mate that the nighttime sounds aren’t heard. But suddenly one night you don’t go to bed at the same time as your partner. Climbing under the covers it dawns on you that your other half snores. Is that going to disturb your sleep? If your love is strong enough, you won’t even notice.

Prior to marriage, you and your mate would talk long into the night. You’ve tied the knot; did this also choke off the lines of communication? Now is the time to talk openly and freely. Did either of you have a bad day? Lean on each other for support. Talk about the day.

You’ve said your vows. Remember that sickness and health part? You probably consider sickness to mean physical maladies. But how do you handle mental and emotional issues? This is when your mate needs you the most. Once you learn your other half has an emotional problem such as the more common one of Bipolar Disorder, the first thing you do is assure your mate that it does not lessen your relationship. Then, either alone or together learn all you can so as to be prepared for how this issue can affect your partner.

Are you really ready for the sickness part? You or your partner could, because of illness become very dependent on the other. This also includes the ills associated with pregnancy. Look at all the long-term possibilities.

Getting married is serious. There will be issues that come up on both sides so be ready to deal with them. Love is not enough. It takes respect; caring and willingness to give each other needed space. Be prepared to compromise, to give in. When you’re wrong, say so. Treat your mate like you want to be treated. It may be your spouse, but your other half better be your best friend also!

For the Love of Money
Mood:  happy
Topic: personal essay

For the Love of Money

 

Coin of the realm is too often the devil’s toy. People will kill to get even a miniscule bit of it. It’s amazing how hard some people will work to not earn an honest dollar. Does it really make any sense? People will use violence and subterfuge to take what others have worked so hard to earn. Even if they aren’t caught, they will spend their life looking over their shoulders.

 

Then we have the opposite end of the scale. These are the workaholics, the ones that know how to earn money legitimately. They spend every minute of every day looking for ways to make money. These are the types that will spend a fortune to have the most fancy house on the block to show everyone how rich he is. Then he will spend every available minute away from home earning even more money.

 

The only question I have is, why? The biblical statement, “The love of money is the root of all evil” is very true. In the first case it is obvious but what about the second? This person worships money above all else around him. Even family and friends come in second. This is because money is an idol to be bowed down to. Why is the answer to everything based on money?

 

I can understand the need for money to cover the basic needs. I can even understand the desire for a few extras. I cannot understand the need to be rich. Why does a person’s ego have to be so big as to have to show off to everyone? What makes material possessions more precious than the love of one another? Why do people think the only way they can prove their worth is by the things they can buy? I have more respect for the beggar that says thank you for the dollar I give than I do for the rich man that turns up his nose at this same beggar.

 

What do you respect, money, or faith?

True love
Mood:  sad
Topic: personal essay

True love

 

Have you ever experienced a love where your first concern is how the other person feels? A love where you know what they will say before they say it? A love so strong that just being with them lights up a room? A feeling that when the other person is happy you are happy but when they are sad, or hurt it affects you twice as bad?

 

Have you ever felt a love so strong that you want to tell the world about it? But yet you don’t because you want that person solely for your self?

 

I have, twice

 

Have you ever felt a love so strong that the pain of the other is your pain also? A love so deep that it transcends all of nature? A love that depends not on distance? Have you ever experienced a feeling that cannot be expressed in words? Have the feelings of the other person been so important that to make a mistake affects the very soul?

 

Have you ever experienced a love so strong that the loss of the other makes you want to tear your heart out?

 

I have, once

 

Have you? Comments welcome

 

words I pen
Mood:  down
Topic: personal essay

Words I Pen

 

I write the words, yet they are read wrong. I cannot say them any plainer. I know not the simple way of speaking. I have tried to be direct yet it is taken wrong. Do I write such drivel as to be thought mad? Or is the pen I use more poisonous than I would ever conceive?

 

I speak from the heart yet I appear to be throwing knives. From the depths of my soul do I feel the heat yet it comes out as ice. Fear not for I am but the holder of the feelings. I share them willingly but they are thrown back at me in anger.

 

Lest I be thought the spirit of evil, nay, lest my heart be stilled, I cannot belay the heart and soul of the love that dwells within. It is the fire of a thousand suns but is taken as the ice shelf of the universe. Can not I say what I mean and have it taken as I mean it?

 

For what lies in the heart of one man is not felt in the heart of the woman. The feelings cannot overtake the logic of the mind. I dwell alone in this sea of pain and sorrow. Hear me not for my words are but ink upon paper. What they have in meaning is but for my heart to explore.

Mind over Heart
Topic: personal essay

Mind over Heart

 

There are two ways to go through life; analytical/clinical or emotional.

 

Analytical/clinical types have a very high IQ and analyze the world around them. They can have very sensitive feelings and are easily hurt. But it is analyzed to be something wrong with the other person. These types are very good at research and putting out data and fact filled reports. They are not capable however of shutting this features off long enough to see if their heart has anything to say. Heartfelt emotions get in the way of functioning. A mother has a nurturing instinct that is in reality, an analytical love. She has to do what is right for her offspring.

 

The emotional types have a much harder road to follow. To exist, the emotions must be turned off to let what analytical abilities exist be used to provide a living. Few males are of this type. Those that are are almost always at home in the arts. The emotional types can write with anger or love and do so with power and feeling. These are the romantics and humor writers.

 

Can these two types co-exist? Mathematically yes since two halves make a whole. But in reality, the analytical type must shut down the mind to let emotions fill the heart.

family
Mood:  happy
Topic: personal essay

Family

 

People do not have to be related by blood to be part of a family. You don’t even have to be human. But what does is a family? The defining words are love and trust. There has to be an underlying current of unconditional love. Each member of a family will have their individual problems, but within the unit these should be mutually accepted. This also brings up one other important requirement, listening.

 

A very important distinction must be made here. Listening and hearing are NOT the same. When a person ‘hears’ something, the sound enters the ear long enough to register as sound, but the meaning does not register. When a person ‘listens’, a sound enters the ear and is allowed to enter the cognitive function part of the brain. I used to hear, now I listen. Are you a listener, or a hearer?

 

Trust is critical. You must be trustworthy to be trusted. Families do not keep secrets from each other. How does one earn that coveted trustworthy status? One has to be upfront and honest. Things break down quickly at the first hint of deception. Regaining the trust of others is an arduous task. If a person says they are going to do something, make sure it gets done.

 

Then we have the two magic words, love and like. To love someone means you care. You won’t always agree but must care enough to try and understand your family’s point of view. To love is to help the other members. For the one you fall in love with, caring is so much more important. Being with them in good times is easy. When times are hard, when emotional issues or sickness arrives, that is when you must stand by the person you are in love with. Emotional issues, especially depression, are the most difficult to deal with. It is also at this time when a person must stand by their loved one the closest. So, when these issues arise, do you show the person you are in love with more care and consideration? Or the door?

The Clock is Tickig
Mood:  happy
Topic: personal essay

The Clock is Ticking

 

Time, my enemy, moves forward. It cannot travel in reverse. But oh, how I wish it could. I have made thousands of mistakes but only one I want to change. I cannot. I move forward even though I really don’t want to. I exist in a void. Do I really have a positive future?

 

As I write this, I see nothing in front of me. I have no dreams, no aspirations. I see nothing but despair and depression. I’m alone in a house with other people. I am not good enough. I’m unwanted. I only exist.

 

Time however knows not of my desolation. The numbers on the clock march on. I seek not death, but life. I seek release from this humble existence. I search for happiness yet is that a realistic goal? I set my sights on the best. I aim for the pinnacle, the epitome of quality. It is not a reachable goal, but a goal nonetheless.

 

I will never be good enough. But yet I strive to improve. It will take more than I am. To get from where I am to the next step on my journey requires patience. I have none. It is this alone that makes me question why I exist. I survive, move across the sands of time towards a source of help. Medicine can control the depression. Therapy can help with the mental issues.

 

These issues, depression and mental illness have made my life, such as it was, a living hell. I am mentally ill. Will I ever be good enough? The hours chime, the work continues, I collect the pieces. Can pills, therapy, and my hard work, reassemble the pieces in an acceptable form?

Life in the Dead Zone
Mood:  crushed out
Topic: personal essay

Life in the Dead Zone

 

The maelstrom that is my life has gone from bad to hell on earth. The language used in this treatise is not done for effect but is instead meant in its most literal form. There may be none, we shall see.

 

I thought I had lived a decent life. I did not use drugs, nor believed in violence. What then went wrong? I existed on the surface of the me that covered a dark and foreboding secret. The me I portrayed fed off this secret and drove everyone away.

 

This secret, this basis of the anger upended my emotional state. The me that I want to be is not the me I display. The me that is seen destroys all relationships. My life has been and is, very empty. This emotional firestorm finally flashed over and destroyed the one true relationship. I, at this point, see not a rescue. The fires will abate but it leaves behind a charred and destroyed shell of humanity.

Is it Possible
Mood:  crushed out
Topic: personal essay

Is it Possible?

 

Is it really possible to recover some semblance of happiness after a devastating loss? From my point of view, I don’t see it. Then I am supposed to just forget my past? Forget those that meant everything? That kind of family, that kind of love comes along but once a lifetime.

 

Is it possible to forgive an emotionally destroyed old fool? No, I don’t think so. Nothing is salvageable. The emotions are horribly mangled, nothing can repair them. Why can’t they just be shut down? They are only trouble. Why me? Why did this emotional firestorm target me? that cyclonic vortex has sucked me into the bowels of hell. Is it really possible for this black hole of emotional ineptitude to change colors?

 

Wasted!
Mood:  don't ask
Topic: personal essay

Wasted

 

A lifetime gone. Years of existence spent on self-destruction. No drugs, no alcohol, no violence was needed. God gave me life. I gave it meaninglessness. Failure was not an option. It was and is, a fact. Six decades wasted. No love survived my presence.

 

I destroyed myself. The emotional hell that was and is, me put all around asunder. No job, no relationship, survives my emotional onslaught. All that I could have been, never was. No one, myself included, can be around me and walk away whole. I am fragmented pile of invalid humanity. Six relationships, six failures. A lifetime wasted.

 

This is not a self-destruct prophecy. It may be an escape mechanism. I know not to where since nowhere am I wanted. All that meet me in person shun me. I wear a cloak seeped in disaster. What it covers I know not. Is there a core, a seed worthy of salvation? This begs the question of, is, there any prayer of a future? With the history of emotional degradation, no chance exists for a future relationship. I have wasted, nay, destroyed, shattered, all dreams. I no longer have a chance at love, or a relationship. My declining years shall fade to dark and everyone’s relief.