Memories – The Rebellion of Angels and Demons Within

Memories are something very unique and is a fingerprint of its own.  Memories can be good or bad.  Memories can be created where you are on the receiving end or the other end of someone else’s good/bad memories.  It is part of life and the inevitable journey we all have.

My unshakable memories, the good, the bad and the ugly experiences, were the building blocks of who I am today and directly influence my decision-making skills.  Some memories flare up more often than others; some hurt more than others; some cause tears to run down my face, and some put a smile on my face.

I have memories where I was a scapegoat for some; memories where I was toyed with and made a fool of; or being used for the growth and wellbeing to people that did not care how it affected me.  And the same applies to the hurt I have caused to the people I loved.  I was as much a monster as I was a victim and I form part of many bad memories of others (and hopefully some good ones too).  Many of my mistakes in my past still haunt me to this day.

And for a person that easily forgive, it is extremely frustrating when I realize I never forgave myself, nor does it feel that I will forgive myself soon.  Some memories present themselves as regrets where I can’t help to wonder “what if…” or “I should’ve…”.  When that happens, the memories become a burden that gradually grow to a point where I struggle to keep my chin up.

But of course, one does have good memories too.  Memories of a first love and first kiss; chatting for hours on end with someone you care about; memories of dancing in the rain; memories of a get together with friends are to mention a few, but it means as much to me now as it did all those years ago.  Some memories are my coping mechanism.  During tough times, I try to recall the best memories in my life – even though it hurts because it is something in the past and I can never reinvent those times.  I am very fortunate that I had magnificent people in my life in the past, and even now, there are still a few that always build up the good memories in my life.

But, things have changed.  In the past I was more open, and I shared more than I do now.  I have realized that I try to keep everything inside – partly not to expose myself to hurt again, or to disappoint the people in my life.  But is it what life is about?  Is it about ‘playing it safe’?  Or is it about protecting the important people in your life? Or is it about gambling with uncertainties and then hope for the best? In keeping to myself, does it reduce the possible good memories still to be made?

I find myself wondering if it is possible to change.  Or is it that at this stage of my life, change is almost impossible?  I would not mind experiencing some of my memories of my ‘long long ago in a faraway place’ again.  Or of such quality that I will never forget it. But it feels like that is just a mere wish upon a star where it is only possible in dreams.

Make time for the loved ones – often just a “hello” or “I miss you!” can remind someone that they are important in your life.  Keep those who create the good memories close to you and cherish them.  Capture those memories deep within you heart and mind!  Call on those memories as often as you can!  Let the good memories overshadow everything else.  Do not let the regrettable memories overpower the good ones as it will take a greater effort to rejuvenate your positive energy. Harvest and be part of good memories.

Damned If You do… Damned If You Don’t

I haven’t posted anything in a very long time, and I suppose there are many reasons for it.  As soon as I think I will frequent the blog more often, life happens.  And since I started with this blog, I have truly attempted to keep it to the positive side as life is negative enough as it is.

Unfortunately, it is not always possible.  The past few weeks has been ‘interesting’ to say the least.  A lot of things changed and now I find myself lost – not sure where I belong.  I know they say change is as good as a holiday, but to be brutally honest, I think I would rather prefer a holiday right now – just find myself in the right mindset again.

Today has been draining – physically and mentally – to a point where I am not sure if all these years where I have made attempts to be more positive about life and everything in it, was even worth it.  Apart from doubting myself, I doubt others as well.  I question every word and every action.  That by itself is already demoralizing.  But it is just one of those days that many people experience more often than they would like to admit.

Not Waving but Drowning

Stevie Smith – 1902-1971

Nobody heard him, the dead man,

But still he lay moaning:

I was much further out than you thought

And not waving but drowning.

Poor chap, he always loved larking

And now he’s dead

It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,

They said.

Oh, no no no, it was too cold always

(Still the dead one lay moaning)

I was much too far out all my life

And not waving but drowning.

How does one find yourself in a better place?  How does one pull yourself back to your feet and hold your chin up?  How does one see past the darkness?  Where does one find inspiration to love life again?  Those are the questions I struggle to find answers to.  Of late it is easier to see the negative than the good in anything.

How does some do it?  I am not talking about putting up a smile and pretend nothing is wrong.  I have aced that art just to keep people from asking questions I do not have answers to, or that I am not ready to answer.  I am a master at that.  I am talking about people that really have been thrown to the wolves, and yet, they seem energetic and filled with positivity.  I just cannot get to that level.

Lost and alone… My mind is a chaos-filled battlefield where no good can come from.  Even good intentions are frowned upon and questioned.   I am worried for what may come and I am anxious about what the future may hold.  I am scared like I haven’t been in a while.

What-If Woes

In our lifetime, we almost daily find the proverbial fork in the road where we must make decisions or take actions that can change the rest of our lives.  Sometimes circumstances even force you into a direction where you have no choice but need to adapt.

Days, weeks, months, even years can pass before we find ourselves questioning our actions even though we are frequently told not to brood over past events.

What if… my dad didn’t pass away when he did?  How would it have affected my personality?  How different would my life have been?  Would I have been a greater success or a greater failure?

What if I finished my studies? Would I be overworked?  Would I be unemployed?  What if I got married when I was younger?  Would I still be married, or be divorced?  Would I have kids now?   Would I be a good father figure – a hero to my kids?  Or would I be a dad that would’ve been a bad influence and destroyed their future?

What if I never chatted on online mediums?  Where would I have been today?  What if I never moved away… or moved back?  Would I still have had access to great people I have met?  Would I have been more miserable if I stayed?  What if I never resigned?  Would I have made a success?

The what-if curse is endless.  The what-if burden is powerful.  We cannot predict the future and we do not have the luxury to turn back time to see where the other roads will lead.  I suppose it is true what they say:  Make the most of what you have.

My life could’ve been much different in many aspects.  But at the end, I also know irrespective of the path you have taken, there are blessings on each road.

There are many things I could’ve done better.  There are many bad decisions in my life.  Many of them, I still make today.  But I have been blessed with great people with moving, great people with the online community, great people I have met now, great people I have worked with in the past (magnificent people to be honest) and I have been blessed with people that were willing to take a chance on me up to this day!

A water molecule does not only flow in a single river, but ends up the in the oceans, evaporate, rain in a distant country, flows in a different country, ends up in a dam, and eventually ends up in the oceans again to start the process all over again. This is what life is all about.  Be the raindrop that sustains life and don’t focus on unimportant things.  What-if is past.  What-I-can is what you need to focus on.  Count your blessings as they are endless!

Piece By Piece – The Ultimate Test Of Time

So often we ask ourselves what life is all about or what your purpose in life is.  To say life is complicated, will be an understatement.  Life is NOT predictable!  Life often confuses us because we do not understand something.  Life is puzzling at times; often pushing us to the limits (or it feels that way).  Yet, we continue…

They define a puzzle as a problem designed in the form of a toy or game to test ingenuity or knowledge.  And life, my dear friend, is nothing less than a puzzle.  Your life is an evolving jigsaw puzzle.

Now, a jigsaw puzzle is described as a tiling puzzle that you need to assemble by putting together multiple ‘oddly-shaped’ interlocking and tessellating pieces.  Each piece contains a small part of a picture on it and all of them assembled produces a complete picture.

A jigsaw puzzle can even be 2D or even 3D.  It can be 100 pieces or 15000 pieces.  A jigsaw puzzle can be any shape or size.  The subject of the jigsaw puzzle is only limited to your imagination.

Isn’t life exactly that?  Little bits and pieces in time we juggle around to fit snuggly together.  We cannot predict how long it will take us to complete this evolutionary jigsaw and we cannot control the process completely.

Some people may attempt to finish the edges off first and then work their way inwards, whilst others may start in the middle.  Some may even complete little clusters of detail and fill in the minor details afterwards.  Irrespective of which route you take, none of them are wrong, and the result will still be the same – a complete picture.

Think back at the last time you sat down and worked on a puzzle.  How many times did you take a piece and rotate it repeatedly with the hope that it fits?  Other times, by luck, you picked the right piece and it fit immediately; sometimes you put the correct piece aside because you didn’t rotate the piece correctly.

The more I think about it, the more I believe life really is an evolving, 3D, million-piece jigsaw puzzle.  Sometimes you think the right person/situation came along and fit ‘just there’, just to be reminded with a broken heart and scars that it is not the case.  Other times the opposite is possible too where you push away a great person you love and cherish, but because of their importance, you put it aside as you do not want to take that slim chance that you are wrong.

Either way, life is a puzzle in progress.

From my experience, I know I have lost great opportunities because I would rather be hurting than to disappoint someone a care about.  But all is not gloomy!  As the one piece is placed, it created a space for new developments.  A prime example is because if the ‘bad’ didn’t happen, I would not have had the opportunity to experience the great people in my life.  This range from my current employment to people in my life.  Every person; every circumstance; every memory.  It all forms part of your unique jigsaw puzzle.

You were given the puzzle pieces which can vary and you were given time – an underrated, priceless commodity!  At the end, what you do with these pieces and your will to try and try again, will ultimately define your puzzle.

Will you sit with a completed jigsaw puzzle, or will you end up with a heap of unused puzzle pieces and empty holes in your puzzle?

We need to realise that life is a puzzle assembled piece by piece and that every experience, person and memory forms part of the puzzle whether we like it or not.  It all forms part of the complete puzzle: the bigger picture.

Whether it is lost friendships; gained relationships, loving someone wholehearted and yet, they will never know, or being on the other side of the coin of wondering; all forms part of your puzzle.  At times, you might wonder if you force a puzzle piece in a slot because you want it there, what the repercussions may be.  A single puzzle piece has multiple sides and forcing it to try and fit where it should not be, will exponentially affect your puzzle.

Our puzzles might be unique, but we all have received a time as a measure.  A second is a second is a second; no matter where in the world or in which century you live.  But appreciate each piece in your life.  Cherish the cornerstones of your existence.  Invest in the time commodity as the dividends will pay off when you complete and showcase your jigsaw puzzle.

What will yours look like at the end? Will it be of such importance that others will showcase it long after you are gone?

Haunted by Unforgivable Mistakes

The night is dark.  Barely any light break through the towering tree tops that create faint silhouettes, but as soon as they appear, are they absorbed in the thick mist covering the forest floor.  A grey, lifeless canvas is all that is left.  The path forward is uncertain, but turning around is not an option.

This is where my thoughts lead me the last while.  The eerie shadows of mistakes from the past.  It is easy to say not to live with regrets, and I understand the thought process behind it.

But ‘What if…’

What if you could time-travel back in time to avoid making a mistake?  How far would you go back?  Would you go back, knowing that it will change your whole future, and erase good memories made after the mistake you wish to fix?

Friends gave me their input, based on their current mindset and circumstances.  Interesting enough, it ranges from friends wishing not to change anything, to friends having specific times in their lives.  This made me realise that we all have a struggle of our own.

The struggle is real.

When I asked myself this question, I would probably try to go back for more than a decade.  Maybe even further back, however, it is more complicated than that.  If I time-travelled to all these years ago, there is no doubt my life would’ve been totally different.  But as we all know, there are consequences to our actions.  If you changed the history affecting your life, you will change your path forward.  If I changed the course of my life, I would’ve gained in certain aspects, but lost in other aspects.

My character would’ve been slightly different as certain experiences help you grow in life, and some things you can only learn from experience.  And let’s be honest, at times we are too proud to learn from other’s mistakes or ask a helping hand.

Unfortunately, one cannot time-travel, and the consequences of our decisions and actions of our past will have changed our lives inevitably.  Our decisions would’ve cost us friends, and gained new ones.  Our professional careers might have been different, or our direction of studies might have been different.

My mistakes have cost me more than what I would admit to, but saying it was only losses would be a lie.  I have gained a lot as well.  I have met new people.  I have met great people BECAUSE I have made the mistakes in the past.

Mistakes come with a cost.  Gaining all I have as a consequence of my mistakes, also came at a price.

Now, imagine the warm smile on someone’s face when they are happy.  Imagine the friendly wrinkles around their eyes when they are content.  Imagine the air filled with the laughter and warmth of their beating heart.  Imagine their comforting voice as they speak.  Imagine that racing heartbeat when you just think of them.  Imagine the excitement of having them in your life.  Imagine how you wish to be there as support them when things go wrong – even if is just a shoulder to lean on or a listening ear.  To know they can rely and depend on you.  Imagine getting good news and talking to them trump the feeling of the good news.

Then imagine…

Then imagine pushing them away because you do not wish to hurt them; you wish not to disappoint them; you wish to keep them safe from your demons.  You watch from afar because you care too deeply and you sacrifice possibly one of your few chances of happiness all to see them happy.  Imagine this burden bearable because you believe they are worth every moment.

We all battle our demons daily.  And with some battles we are victorious and others we have casualties.  The scar tissue remains as the reminder of battles won and lost. It is easy to say not to live with regret, but some say it is not regretting, just lessons learned.  At the end, it boils down to your decision on how you wish to balance it because every single moment of our life, is about choices and that begins a new vicious circle of consequences all over again.

As we meander through our unique ominous wilderness, we know we are not the first or the last to take this journey, yet we feel alone.  The burden adds weights to our feet and at times it feels as if our backs are snapped backwards.  At the end, we all yearn for that ray of sunshine, even if just for a split second.  It gives us hope and we push forward.

The journey continues…

A Continuum Between Time and Space: The internal Blessing and Curse

Life is filled with constants and variables: things we can change and things we can’t – notions defines as absolute or relational to…While some might say it is keeping life interesting, it is not always a walk in the park. Others even resolve to manipulation in an attempt to control the variables in life.

The last few weeks, I frequently found myself reflecting on events, circumstances, consequences, and choices (sometimes even misinterpreted) that I have made.  My whole life is filled with variables, with time being the only constant value.

Space is a variable that we live in and that we create – whether it is visible (like your home or garden) or fictional (in the mind’s eye).  Your circle of friends is a self-made fictional space and you tend to decide how big or small the circle is and who you allow in that circle.  At the same time, giving someone space to either reflect on something or to enable that person to find inner peace, isn’t always verbally communicated.  More often than not, it is seen as an uncaring characteristic.

Having enough respect for someone to sacrifice your own happiness in order to ensure their happiness is not just a sign of a loving heart, but also of pure intentions.  Space does not mean you are unreachable.  Many believe that a good friend is always with you are parties and clubbing.  Isn’t a true friend to speak the truth, irrespective of whether you would like to hear it or not?  Isn’t a friend the one that will give up their life for you in a heartbeat?

Even friends are variables in life.  You might argue and say that friends should be defined as a constant in life.  But hear me out…
Some friends come and go.  Others stay put.  The amount of friends differs often.  Even the quality of friends change.  Friendship, as is love, is like a fruit tree.  You water it, nourish it and protect it against the cold and in return you receive fruits and shade protecting you from the harsh elements.  A healthy give-and-take relationship: never one-sided.

Circumstances are variables often forced upon you, and sometimes it is just the result and consequences of decisions and/or actions.  Some decisions can change your whole life – for better or worse.

The variables in life are endless whether self-made or force upon.  There are people trying to manipulate anyone or anything in an attempt to control a variable, but not with lasting results.

Picture by Gerd Altmann

Even though a moment in time can be a fraction of a second, or years, time is our only true constant measurement tool.  What have you done with your time?  What have you accomplished in your life?

Years ago, I made the greatest mistake in my life:  a decision I made changed the course of my life forever.  Consequences of my decisions and actions have been a bitter pill to swallow.  But the pain is bearable and accompanied by what I have learned from my mistakes.  A person learns to adjust and adapt.

Variables are not always loom and gloom.  Variables, even though a form of uncertainty, can be positive too.  New experiences and new challenges and goals often reward a person more than what you would expect.  Appreciation is often a great gift!

I think what I am trying to say is to use time as your measurement tool.  Make every moment count.  Appreciate a single moment.  Cherish a whole lifetime.  Time is all you have.  Use the time to tell someone you miss them or you love them.  Use the time you have to walk through your garden and appreciate the miracles.  Treasure the time you have with a friend because it might be the last opportunity you may have.

I have wasted too much time unnecessarily.  Don’t make the mistakes I made.  If you have a split second to tell someone how much you care or love them, use it!  Tomorrow, things might change.  Time is a gift!  Time is a miracle!  Don’t let it slip away!