Imagine the Action: The Starting Point

My first objective was to reclaim myself. I had to sit down and think about this. How do I reclaim myself? Or better yet, how do I let go of decades of living.
I wanted to be clear-headed; but furthermore, I wanted to be free of myself. I wanted to be free of irrational pain. I wanted to be comfortable in my surroundings or like the song says, “I wanted to see you, walking away from me without the sensation of you leaving me alone.”

I started my journals with the idea that I can rid myself of the internal voice. I wanted to stop the “Thought machine” but more, I had to find a way to cope. I needed to find a distraction and a replacement to keep myself from the sensation of being empty.
Also, I had to keep myself from the fears of openly discussing the details of my thinking. I had to rid myself of worry from the critics. I had to avoid the concerns of “What will people think of me if they knew the truth?”

I had lived a lifeless existence for too long and by the time that I came to my personal arrangement, my discomfort outweighed my fears of what people might say. I had to distract myself. I had to replace my thoughts with action. Otherwise, it was too easy to give in to fear and be swallowed by the darkness of my thoughts.

I made the commitment that everything I wrote or said between us would have to be true. Otherwise, I would face the consequences of lying to myself.
I was not asking for perfection. I was not expecting my life to turn into some storybook fashion. But rather, my hopes were that I could find a method of understanding, to broker a sense of internal peace and process my thoughts without being crippled or feed my doubt. 

At the time, I was working at a job that was unrewarding. My day was simply plain and automatic. There were no bursts of desire or moments of achievement. Instead, my life seemed to be “Push-button” at best. I was living in a life that was brand new to me. I was alone (and unsupervised). I was on my own for the first time. There was no one else around to speak with. There was no one to ask me how my day was. At the time, all I had was a little kitten named Tiki and she didn’t give a shit. All Tiki wanted was food, some catnip and to play from time to time. Oh, and a chenille blanket that I used to have. Tiki loved to sleep on it.

Now, enter the pains of realization. Enter the crossroads of understanding. Enter the denial and the knowledge that there are only two choices; either stay as I was and live with more of the same or change and experience the unknown. In short, I was afraid.

As a person in need of ways to understand information, I chose to learn through analogies to retain information and understand the lessons in my life.
This is how I learned to replace my thoughts with a new level of understanding. For example, there was a leak in the ceiling at one of the offices at work. Part of my job was to find this leak and make the repair.
Water was seeping down but no one could find the source. The manager told me, “Water will always find a way.” I thought to myself, “I think I’ve heard this saying before.”
I had to look for the leak, which I eventually found. The water came from a leaky pipe in the floor above. However, the pipe was several feet away from where the water leaked in the ceiling. Somehow, water traveled and found a seam. Hence the saying, “Water will always find a way.”

I started these journals as a means to allow symbolism to help create a better level of understanding. Or, in easier terms, I used this to help me find a way. Just like water. I wanted to find a way. I wanted to find a way to alleviate the pressure so that I could breathe. 
I saw the cracks and the seams and even the tiniest of crevices as my dreams; in which case, I had to find a way.

I wanted love. I wanted to be wanted and included. I wanted to be invited and regarded because otherwise, I saw myself as alone and misunderstood.
I wanted to be more than a shell of a person and better than the stereotype which I believed about myself. But how?

I stood at the crossroads and found myself in need of an agreement. I needed to create an arrangement so that I could stop the wars between my doubt and my hope. This became my answer.
My journals acted as my personal peace treaty. This was the only way I could allow either side of my yin or my yang to speak honestly and openly, without judgment or limitations. Both sides had their fair share and room to speak.
This is where I allowed my pain to spill. I let myself bleed here. I gave myself the justified outlet to broker the truce and mend the differences between my love and hate, which in farness to myself; this was not only daring but brave as well. I knew that I would open myself up to interpretation. I knew that I would be open to criticism; but more, I would be vulnerable or possibly weak.

I used to run from my feelings. I used to hide them because to me, feelings made people weak. In the time of action, weakness makes people hesitate.
And me, I was always on guard. I always needed to be prepared.
Always have something to say. Always have an answer.
Always be ready because emotional devastation was always a threat.

Ever since I was a child, I’ve always been afraid of the dark. Then again, there were times when I was afraid of the light. There was a reason why I was afraid. And that’s why I journaled: I do this to keep me safe, to rid my fears and to honor the treaty between the two halves of my thinking. 

And to find benefit from this treaty and honor both sides, I wrote the thought below:

They say that water always finds a way, whether through a crack or a hole, water will always seep through. I say light works this way too. Light can seep through the cracks and crevices and beam through any opening in a place that would otherwise be dark.

Light can always find a way, even in the darkest of places or in the darkest of nights or blackest of concepts, even the tiniest glimpse of light can brighten the darkest of places; to illuminate possibilities and lighten the mind’s imagination to see in times that come without sight.

So, don’t be afraid.

Even the smallest speck of light can defend itself against the strength of an occurring darkness. I call this hope. I call this the ability to create vision and overtake shadows and overthrow the mistaken mysteries of a life left undone.

The way I see it; our light is our soul refusing to submit. Our light is our truth and our desire to live.
Our light defines our ability to survive another moment without living another minute of regret. 

Our light is our hope and our doubt is our darkness; however, no darkness can ever survive so long as light is involved and albeit small sometimes and although the glimmer seems to fade, even the faintest light is still light.
This is us. This is our knowledge. This is our wisdom and understanding, which is often overrun by the nonsense of doubt. This is why the light can be too bright sometimes to illuminate the truth and leave shadows on the lies which we tell ourselves too often.

My light is equal to my ability to love and therefore, my ability to hate showed that if I have the capacity to hate so passionately then I can love just as passionately and with less casualties to come from its effects.

My light is equal to my ability to live and should the sun turn to midnight, then both my love and my life will be lit by the moonbeams and starlight.
This means that my mind’s ability will leave footprints on the sunlight of tomorrow’s morning and like the light of our new morning sun, my job is to find a way; to seep through the cracks and find the crevices. My job is to find the seams and look for the openings in places which would otherwise seem impossible. My job is to find my way, shine my light and make it so. 

This was my starting point.