The Darkness

The clapping stopped. The laughter ceased. The people went home with their loved ones. The seats were empty. The curtain closed. The people around you left or moved on. You look to your left and right and up and down and there is no one there. There is nothing under you. The lights dimmed and it’s getting darker. You realize you’re alone. In your mind, you are not alone. You have memories of being surrounded by loved ones and care. Those memories start to dim as well. You are left to wander alone blindly in this darkness of the unknown. It creates fear inside of you. Fear of not just the unknown, but losing what was in your past that you cherish and lost. It happened and it’s real, but it’s gone. You are the only one who can light your path in the darkness. As you slowly create a dim light along your new path, reach your hand out for those that are reaching for you. Do so with apprehension of their intent and some trepidation of their goals; they might not be on the same path as you and that’s natural. Let the light illuminate your heart. Love yourself again. Look at yourself in the mirror and tell yourself, I am the light in my darkness. 

Carry Me

If you told me this is where I would be, at this point in life, I would probably not believe you. Not because of all the great stuff I experienced, but rather so much pain I made it through. Really the pain I see in others who have gone through similar experiences. If you told me I would have to watch them suffer, I probably would’ve been so sad and wondered why things happened the way they did. If you told me, “oh, that’s life Bobby…” I would say, yeah, I wanted more time; not a lifetime, but more time. If you told me how grateful I can be, on a quiet Wednesday morning, alone in my place, I wouldn’t believe you. Gratitude wasn’t a thing from 0-30 really. It was shaped as things eroded. It was there, but hidden in a hard shell of survival….instead of reflection. If you told me I would have a before and after in life; well that I would probably believe. Like one of my favorite Foo Fighters song, “I’m getting tired of starting again, somewhere new…” This life, the hard, the struggle, the survival, the growth of gratitude and the blindness of criticism….let it empower you…there’s a reason sporting events have timeouts, halftimes, ends of innings…everything that happens, ends, everything that happens, begins. Face the sun with strength and pride and when there is no strength, go inside your heart and remember when your most special person carried strength in their heart for you….and smile…cause they never even told you how much they were carrying for you…because they knew, one day, you’d be carrying it for someone you love. 

Bob

Reframe

The silver lining is that the most important version of her isn't stored on a piece of glossy paper or a hard drive anyway. It’s hardwired into the way you remember how she made you feel when you were running on empty, and the grace she gave you.

Sometimes, the lack of photos means your mind gets to hold onto the memory in its purest form—just the feeling of it, unattached to an image.

Done

I’ve done a lot of shit in my life. You know what? I haven’t done it with you and that’s what I want. I want you next to me on this journey of life. You are what makes it complete. You are what makes it love. You are what gets into my soul, to where, if you’re not there, it is not a complete moment. You are what’s missing. 

DM

You gave me

Hope. Laughs. Confidence. An inviting smile. A blush. A new outlook. Honesty. Real. Comfort. Friendly. Happy. Excited. Curious. 

Sometimes all a person needs is someone to talk to about life. It’s special when you connect with a perfect stranger you meet by pure chance who opens their heart and mind to listen and interact. You don’t know how much you helped me that night.

It past...

I can't change the past. I can't apologize for it again. I can't celebrate it again. The past, often linked with regret of wrongs, is set in stone. We dwell sometimes in those past moments. More so if you're in a dark place of wondering where things went off course, where they went right, where you would be had you not made the wrongs. Granted, there are many happy moments from the past. Time is flying by. One day you're 25, the next 45, next 65....as you move forward, you forget the wrongs, heck, you may forget the rights, you want to remember the good moments, the special times, those private struggles you got through, and those times when you couldn't see the silver lining...only to be here today....knowing there was a lesson in that time. Here's a toast to the past....still the best teacher in the history of man.

"Never regret your past. Rather, embrace it as the teacher that it is." Robin Sharma

Barbarian Days - Basso Profundo Pg. 402 by William Finnegan

At Tony's suggestion, we did not stay in Jardim, but up the mountain, at an inn in a seventeenth-century quinta. The inn had a small pool that looked out on the ocean. Mollie, almost two, called the ocean "big pool" Driving down into Jardim with a board on my car, I felt people turning away from me in the praça. I imagined they were ashamed. Or maybe they just hated surfers now.

The devastation along the shoreline was hard to comprehend, even while standing beside it. I had said it would be impossible to build a walk-way, but that was because I lacked imagination. Vast quantities of rock and dirt had been trucked in and dumped along the waterfront, right around the headland. The job was not complete, but it was already clear that, with enough landfill, they could build an eight-lane freeway along the coast if they chose. Huge yellow earthmovers were roaring back and forth on the landfill, which was not yet paved. In a plume extending from Jardim, the ocean was milky brown with mud. And between the half-built roadway and the water was the most hideous seawall I had ever seen-featureless and yet painful to the eyes. The blocks looked like thousands of angrily discarded coffins. This was the new shoreline. Brown wavelets lapped against the blocks.