Needs...

What I thought I needed and what I need, like usual, are turning out to be two different things. Before I always thought I needed the basic dream we are all taught. Wife, kids, pet, house, cars, items of useless meaning upon wasted resources and space.

What I'm realizing I need isn't a partner as much as a companion. Not a house as much as a home. Not a vast richness of items but a simplistic life with a richness of soul and spirit. I still need my kid, but that's a reflection for another time, as that is a pain I'm still facing.

I always thought I needed sound around me, noise to drown out my thoughts. Instead I've learned I need to embrace my thoughts, embrace my pain...so I can let it all go. Coincidentally, here's something I told a close friend just moments ago about this very tangent. I was telling them about the chaos I live in and how instead of blocking it out, fighting it, which hasn't been working I figured out something else:

"... I realized I need to learn to accept them, see them, take them in and let them roll through me, observe it and feel it, then after it becomes a passive observation rather than a conscious experience, I can let it go. I did it with the noise around me. First the girls noise stopped, then I focused on the smell and it left, finally on the wind, and it went silent. Then thought came and went, some good, some bad, all released into something better. Now, I'm sitting in the dark, in the quiet of my room. Their noise isn't getting to me. And I'm writing."

I've talked to many people over the years about my curse of bad luck. Even recently I've mentioned how the universe likes to play practical jokes at my behalf.

Well the joke was on me, I was the prankster.

For years a few friends or resources would come to my attention, telling me I create all the chaos and strife. I never understood what they meant until lately. Now it's clear as day.

I bury so much negativity and hurt that my cup runneth over. This excess that I can't bury anymore pours over into my life, influencing people and events around me. This negative energy disrupts the natural harmony of the universe, making me an island of frustration and fear in a sea of bliss and tranquility. Facing these pains rather than hide them, is the key to getting off the island and losing yourself into the sea.

These pains, they're a part of you, a part of me. Fighting it is useless, might as well try to walk with a leg tied to the back of your head, you'll get just as far and look just as foolish. Instead, accept it as a part of you. Let it surface, observe it, feel it, and then let it pass. I've always distracted myself from my pain. But in really facing it, I'm learning to let it go.

This release brings a peace and quiet I haven't known in years. I sit here, in the dark, noise around me. But I'm in quiet, I'm in peace, I'm in a place of love, and inside myself I'm home.