Complicated Life

Some of the most profound conversations happen at the oddest times, often unplanned and unexpected. As I was falling asleep last night, my mind half suspended between listening to the repetitive beating of my heart, being grateful to be alive, and trying to catch the swirling thoughts filtering through my mind, I focused on one particular idea fading in and out. Without thought, perhaps subconsciously my soul reaching out to a distant friend, I sent the following text message, “Will life always be this complicated?”

I didn’t expect a response. I closed my eyes, pulled the blankets up to my neck, and hugged my pillow as I started to drift once again into the land of dreams and thoughts. A deep sense of longing for something familiar overwhelmed me. Scenes of my life, people who’ve come and gone, flashed through my mind’s eye. The world keeps changing, nothing ever stays the same, and the people I have loved most in this world have disappeared from my life for various reasons. I hated that moment. I remembered the shallow promises from each one, reminded that life never works out the way we plan, the way we hope, or the way we’ve been led to believe.

I have no regrets, because I’ve lived my life as open and honest as I could, and tried with all my heart to be enough, to be my best, to give my best. It was never enough. It’s my own fault, because I believed the lies, I hoped for the false dreams, I set my expectations high. I thought I could control the outcome with discipline, faithfulness, honesty, faith and hope. I controlled nothing.

The response I received was but a simple word, but it opened the floodgates inside my soul. His words have always been able to do that to me. No matter the state of our relationship, which at this time is non-existent, my muse answered, “Ahuh”.

I couldn’t stop the tears from flowing, the tears of disappointment, of heartbreak, of facing the reality of a situation. I saw the good of life mixed with the bad, the happy moments meshed with the moments of utter pain, a brief glance of love mixed with the face of indifference. It was all one big mess. I responded, “That’s nice to know, good night.”

He responded, “If it wasn’t, it wouldn’t be life.”

That broke the dam inside and I lashed out, “Why doesn’t it come with an instruction manual, or at least a YouTube video, with guidelines? Instead we have fuckups leading fuckups into one rut (a ditch without end) after another, and the independent sojourner aimlessly wandering in never-ending wastelands. Yet, I still dream of paradise (which turns out is actually a sectioned portion of Hell).” 

Meaning – nobody knows the answers, and if we think we do, it’ll turn out to be another lie. We have preachers, prophets and priests telling us their interpretation of God’s guidelines, but all live as hypocrites. We have the politically correct demanding its own set of rules in the name of intolerant tolerance. We have the pacifist, atheist, and various deist all demanding a voice, screaming over each other, but not listening. I am as a child standing in a desert, looking for an answer, but only able to hear a roaring sandstorm. It’s choking me, filling my ears, my mouth, my eyes, and my lungs full of bitter sand. I can’t breathe. My soul needs water. I’m thirsty.

I long for the day when I can close my eyes and finally rest, yet I fight like hell to keep that day from coming as long as I can. Ahuh, life is certainly complicated.

Till next time,

~T.L. Gray