It's Time

Life is filled with moments.  Good moments, bad moments, great moments, and moments of defeat.  We laugh, we cry, we love, we hate, we fall, and then we rise. 

This past year has been filled with a little bit of it all.  Hell, the last few years have been such a rollercoaster, riddled with ups, downs, sharp curves, steep inclines, and free falls.  I regret none of it because all it means is that I have LIVED.  I have felt and experienced the greatest of love, and I have also experienced the worst of pain. It’s time.  It’s time to move on to the next phase, to get on the next ride, and see where the universe takes me.

My spirit cries out with a howl so deep and filled with so much longing, even the wildest of wolves would bow in reverence. My soul has been ripped in two, a piece of it lost, possibly forever.  I’m a weary warrior who’s been fighting the ghosts of my past for so long that my blood-soaked sword is heavy, my arms are weak, and my resolve is exhausted.  But, it’s time.  It’s time to rise from the ashes, leave the battlefield behind, and be reborn to peace. 

It’s time to let the sunshine warm my face, caress my shoulders, pour its radiance into my skin, healing me from the inside out. As Jack Johnson says, it’s time to radiate. It’s time to face my ghosts.

I think it’s time to finally write my story.  My mother just recently passed away, and I think a part of me held back from telling my tale because I didn’t want to hurt her more than she has been hurt in this life. My story isn’t an easy one, and she’s suffered enough.  I’ve tried to write this story a few times already, the last being because I had a source of joy to battle the heaviness I knew that would come, I was in love. Love is always a strength of comfort when battling something very painful. But that source of joy left me, and I just wasn’t strong enough to face my ghosts while my soul was in so much pain. But, it’s time. 

It’s time to face my ghosts. It’s time to open my heart and let healing come in, to let my walls down, to let my gift once again flow freely.  It’s time to get back to being great.  I am great. I am talented. I’m not wasting my life chasing mindless things that mean shit.  I don’t need drugs to numb my feelings, or alcohol to drown the thoughts that torture me, or mindless sex to make me feel alive.  I have many gifts and it’s time to let them do what they’re meant to do. I will not apologize for being driven, for having vision, for living a life focused on rising above the circumstances of a shit world.  I love myself, and believe I deserve the best this world has to offer.  That doesn’t make me a snob, it makes me a warrior.  This world didn’t give me anything, nothing was handed to me, I was not of privilege, and I have fought for everything I’ve accomplished, everything I have done.  I’m so sick of being surrounded by people with nothing but excuses. There are NO excuses.    

We are responsible for the things we allow to come into our lives that distract us, that use us, that hurt us, that we let bring us down.  We have the responsibility to ourselves to remove those things, take a stand against the vampires and the distractions that seek to destroy us.  We can only blame ourselves when we allow people to lie to us and tell us this is who we are, when we should be looking up and forgetting those things that hinder us. I will look forward, look up, move ahead, casting off all those things that hinder. I’m the only one responsible for my situation and my circumstances.  If it was up to the world, I’d be a cheap whore dancing in the local strip club, drowning my sorrow in booze and sniffing my morals away up my nose, blaming everybody else for my circumstances, not caring who I hurt in my path of destrucktion.  But this world can go fuck itself. I am not a victim. I am a survivor, a warrior, and a lady.  I choose love over vices.  I choose hope over the mentality of defeat.  I choose vision instead of excuses.

God, I’m so sick of hearing excuses.  Everywhere I turn I’m bombarded with them.  Everybody has issues.  Everybody.  EVERY BODY!  Everybody is going through something. EVERY BODY has been hurt, tripped up, knocked down, had the rug pulled out from under them.  Who we are - is not what happens to us, but how we respond.  Being a liar, being a cheat, being a fucking vampire scumbag, being an addict or full of excuses and quick fixes, is OUR choice. The only person we have to blame is ourselves.  Keep whining like a little bitch, and that’s all we’ll ever be… a little bitch. So what - We got hurt.  So what - Our dreams were crushed.  So what -  We have to start all over again.  Suck it up, Buttercup.  It’s time.   

I’m tired of hearing excuses… from myself and everyone else.  It’s time. I’m cutting that negativity out of my life.  Some of you are NOT going to like me very much in the coming days.  Some of you are going to hate me because I’m not going to be your sounding board to whine about your problems or lie to yourself with your endless excuses.  I’m going to tell you to shut the fuck and do something about them.  Some of you are not going to want to hang around me because I’m going to be focused, driven, energized, and fighting.  If you’re lazy, you’re going to be intimidated, jealous or irritated by me and my energy.  I don’t give a damn.  Sayanara, bitches.  It’s time. Those I leave behind… I will miss you.  Those who are about to come into my life with all your energy and vision, I can’t wait to meet you.  I’m not apologizing for being hard to keep up with.  Shame on you for being too weak. I know we live in a world of weak people.  That’s their choice.  I love me just as I am.  I have fought hard to be the woman I have become.  It’s okay, I don’t need you or anyone else.  If you’re in my life, it’s because I choose you and I want you.  I can choose to leave at any moment.  It’s time.

Till next time,

~T.L. Gray