Day Twenty Three

DAY TWENTY THREE
Learning from Love; Thoughts Do Become Things
I want to preface this and say that I wrote this almost a year ago, but it is as true today as it was then, and that’s the point of this book: how to be happy through anything. So I want to include it. Enjoy.

"...if you stare long enough into the Abyss, the Abyss stares also into you." Friedrich Nietzsche

How deep is the ocean?
As deep as my love.

And like the ocean, calm at times, yet often ferocious and powerful and overwhelming and consuming, so too is my love.

I know not where passion, zeal, and fervor come from, but I know that I have an endless supply of each. I've spent my life trying to control the flow, but I find more and more that it controls me. It powers me. It creates me. It is me. And with great power comes great responsibility. This power is so great that it can give hope, energy, inspiration, and life to the world. But uncontrolled, it can wreak havoc, create and propagate enormous chaos, and ultimately leave a wake of confusion and despair. This is a wonder I've embraced and struggled with my entire life. A curse and a blessing. Naturally, it is my sole task to make the most of it and use it to do good.

Personally, I've funneled this enormous power into my romantic life. I've seen amazing results and my heart feels as though it has tripled in depth and complexity. But I've also experienced the misery this power can wield when it takes on a course of its own. Passion turns into necessity; zeal turns into insanity; and fervor multiplies the magnitude of the other two. So how then can such an obvious dichotomy be reconciled?

In the past, my solution to the curse of this power was to sacrifice myself so others wouldn't get hurt. I'd put my heart in the line of fire, and effectively I'd take the majority of the damage. Well, if we're keeping score, I didn't hurt anyone else, at least not terribly, so in that respect, I didn't lose. Later I found that by hurting myself, the conduit of this power, I did more damage than I had realized. All personal progress was halted and I was flung into a self-created abyss of depression, despair, and loveless solitude. So by way of bleakness, I lost a lot and the score was very much against me.

Recently, I've resolved to understand this power--to understand what it means, where it comes from, and how I should best use it. I've also spent years learning how to turn it off and on. I know myself to be a highly logical person, however, my primary interaction with the world comes by way of my emotions. I am an emotional lightning rod. Another gift and curse. When my passion is out of control and my emotions are heightened, it becomes immensely more difficult to control them and filter them through the finely-tuned logical outlet I've created. Thus, I'm passionately emotional (aka Drama Queen). This rarely works in my favor, except in isolated comical situations.

I have "good" days and I have "bad" days. The good are the best ever and the bad are progressively getting better. I learned that I must no longer sacrifice myself. In the end, if everyone turns their backs or if everyone were simply removed, I'd have just me. So I have to look out for and take care of number 1. I've also recognized patterns that serve to indicate that my emotions are heightened and my passion will surely prey upon them. In these instances, I've learned to express myself much more deliberately, so as to provide ample notice (or warning), should ever my passion emit itself full force. Of course this doesn't always work and I end up with a mess. Needless to say I've become an expert on damage control.

This brings me to today. I sit here amidst a mess I've created. My passion flowed out of me like a volcano spitting out tornadoes. And of course it did so when my emotions were at DEFCON 1. Actions are more vital than words, so if you need to correct poor actions, it's gonna take a lot more than words (or at least a lot of really good ones).

I know what I want, and for the best year of my life I had exactly what I wanted. But fear of loss, and constantly thinking about loss has a uniquely exact way of coming to fruition. Thus, I declare to you: YOU GET WHAT YOU THINK ABOUT. Think good, and you get good. I summoned this best year of my life, this amazing once in a lifetime gift of love simply by thinking about it. I focused every ounce of my being on exactly what I wanted. And I wasn't at all surprised when I got it. But as time passed, and as stress mounted, old habits resurfaced. I became fearful of losing something so priceless. And right before my very eyes it faded, it began to slip away. Then, of course, focusing on what I had--something I was losing--spun the cycle of "getting what you think about" even faster and made it slip even further away.

So, did I lose? Am I without this amazing gift of love that I had summoned? Am I writing today about a great loss I suffered? Or did I find a way to use this incredible power to capture and keep what I asked for?

The answer: I learned from love and I learned from loss. Both were equally amazing.

May the light of love shine ever brightly and illuminate your path;
May the winds always whisper little love secrets in your ears;
May you be blessed with eyes that can see the essence we all share;
And may incredible peace and happiness fall at your feet.

All my love,
AO