Keeping hope alive

I have failed as much as the rest of you combined, can beat you one on one on heartbreak, frustration, and misery. I don't have a winning percentage but I played hard at everything I lost.

But let me tell you, and I'm older than all of you so I get to do this, just let me tell those of you whom are weary and lost and searching and wondering.

If I died in my sleep tonight, if I took my last breath, I would die happy and content with the life that I have been blessed to breathe in, hold in my hands, fuck up, laugh at, shed tears for and embrace in the heart of my soul.

It's both painstaking and simple. Find what gets you to that point.

I found it.

You can, go look for it.

It is closer than you think.

You reach, someone grabs ahold, so go reach, wide armed and open. And yes you may get hurt. Keep them open. Hurt is better than nothing at all. Hurt is alive. Coming back from it is like makeup sex for the mind.

Touch someone, climb inside them and let them inside you. And if you can't find someone, find something until you do, but keep the fuck looking, no one answers an unknocked door.

They don't want in, find someone else, they won't let you in, find someone else, but if you can't wrap up inside someone and shake your head at the wonder, and say, yes, yes, yes......and get the look back you give.....

Never
Stop
Looking

And if you lose them......and odds are you will

See above

So every night you can say, If I die in my sleep tonight..............

This isn't required reading but it's in the same vein and it might help center some of you. Even if it touches just one of you it's worth it. And if not, what could it hurt, how often do I steer you wrong? I mean not counting the sex stuff.

Following is an excerpt (meaning my favorite parts) of Oriah Mountain Dreamer's The Invitation. I am normally not much for this kind of stuff but I found this while browsing in a book store a couple of years ago and it's already changed my life because without it I wouldn't have met the Sassy One over there and trust me, she is a life changer waiting to happen.

I want to know if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy
mine or your own
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us to
be careful
be realistic
remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me
is true.
I want to know if you can
disappoint another
to be true to yourself.
If you can bear the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty
every day.
And if you can source your own life
from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure
yours and mine
and still stand at the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon,
“Yes.”

I want to know if you can get up
after the night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done
to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
in the centre of the fire
with me
and not shrink back.

I want to know if you can be alone
with yourself
and if you truly like the company you keep
in the empty moments.