It's not easy at all.

It's easy to breathe, to exist.
Living? It's hard as hell.  It takes courage to show up day after day,  to keep pushing to be where we are, to hold on to dreams, to not be beaten by brick walls around the way. It takes a special kind of strength to hold on to innocence and do things out of a good heart. It takes strength to not become the one who is bitter when compared,  as we all do, to the success of others.

It takes fortitude to live with and through pain, and failures, and the realisations of how truly limited we are; truly needy, and yet, truly alone. It takes a hidden treasure to walk with life through days when you suffer from a dry soul.

It's the simplest thing, and the hardest thing.

they never found her body. the man who worked in the stall nearby reported seeing her walk into the sea. he thought it was strange that she was all alone, and she looked entranced.

Later they would find leftover cans of beer in her car; cigarette butts in her room. a video left on her laptop of her singing, 'its times like these we learn to live again'. pieces of writing, of poetry that she had written at different times through the years. a picture of her smiling.

1.

the hurting person
the hurting teacher
pushes the sticky welcome of the floor away
defying gravity
and with the crumbling remains of debris,
puts one foot in front of another.
smiles,  adding an extra cheer in her voice
overcompensating for the deep hollow echoing inside
hurting teachers; hurting parents, hurting workers everywhere

we build with blood weeping from our broken parts.

tell them i was broken
tell them....i was pieces of a broken pot
but for all the brokenness; all the empty pieces and jagged edges, all the bleeding of the substance i tried to hold
i did my best
to love
to embrace
to have a life of meaning
with all my broken pieces

breathing out slowly... letting go.

to feel heavy and light at the same time..

It was about the time when reports began to be confirmed that the plane had been shot down, with 298 people and children inside, because of a conflict unrelated to the people on board, that i thought to myself 'I don't want to live in this world anymore'.

It is a world where people kill each other, where massacre and injustice happen because of what when scaled down to its simplest form is the evil within people - ego, pride, greed. It is a world where 298 people go on a commercial flight for a holiday or to come home, and are shot down because of  A MISTAKE. 298 people, a plane caught in a case of MISTAKEN IDENTITY. they were not part of a war. there was not even any reason or motive behind the shooter's actions. nothing they wanted to achieve. 298 people died for an arbitrary, meaningless incident.

It was about this time when I realised nothing matters. If nothing makes sense, nothing matters. The last remnants of my belief that 'things happen for a reason' is gone with the understanding that there is no reason in what happened, no reason that brought them there. and if i were to say there is a reason for things to happen in MY life, some pattern of stars that have been written for my future, then I am saying that those on the plane had to be on that plane to die for some reason. but i cannot say that. there is no reason.

nothing matters, then. nothing really means anything. all life is about is for me to struggle out my existence, for my own sake so that I MAY BE REDEEMED. so that when all is done, i am found on the right side of light and darkness. that i am found on the right side of eternity. All life is about this- about making my own life worth its existence, FOR MY OWN SAKE. no changing the world, no real impact. i need to act and work in a way that my living will redeem my self, and my loved ones with me.

The path life takes us...

Its curious how the dots connect in our lives. A seemingly blank future, in the sense that nothing yet exists and there is no telling what can happen, other than the sketches we etch out of what (we think) we want - our plans. Plans of work, of marriage, of a place to live - minute plans like what to have for dinner or bigger plans like to write a book. None of it exists other than by imaginations in our minds. We dream of making them true, and we dream of the 'happiness' that comes along with it. We dream of 'having arrived'.

But what actually happens, happens arbitrarily. Shaped by the million forces that are outside our control. And it is curious, how these seemingly arbitrary incidences shape our lives. If I hadn't showed up for that interview, I would never have met you. If I had taken the scholarship as I sometimes regret not doing, I wouldn't have been looking for a job and set up that interview. If I weren't driving and listening to the radio at the exact time you were on, I would never have heard of you or your work. I wouldn't be anticipating a life of being alone, wrapped up in love for you, wondering at the possibility of one day adopting and raising a child without a man, having failed to muster any love for someone else comparable to the force our arbitrary steps has led us to.

And yet, by principle of the same arbitrary pattern, anything can happen. And we can be judged only in history.

There is, then, no need for fear. No need for worry.
There is need only to BE - to grow our hearts into a strong, discerning torch that allows us to live fully and love truly.