No hello or goodbye

It’s hard to go back to the days where it didn’t feel like this,

When I didn’t wish that I didn’t exist.

When the words came easier,

And I was better than this.

I’d be lying if I said,

I didn’t find the best version of me with you,

When fairy tales were true,

Where love existed in a million dimensions,

And I felt you in all of your expressions.

I don’t want to say it,

That I still love you,

Because I won’t let myself have you,

You need to find a love that isn’t beaten,

A love that isn’t broken,

Love that you deserve.

So don’t love me,

I know you wouldn’t want to,

But forget it ever was me.

Because I won’t come back,

I’ll just keep trying to fix my own cracks,

But I’ll be here,

Still broken and choking,

On discarded fragments of my own broken love.

It’s vivid,

The pain,

It feels like twenty million broken shards of glass,

Skull shattering cannons have blasted into me,

Leaving me,

Here.

I don’t know what I’m trying to say,

It is not a hello or goodbye,

It’s a fragmented version of an explanation,

Of an apology,

For not being enough for myself,

For running away from this self.

It will always be yours.

It will beat.

I will breathe.

And one day it will stop.

                                                                  But it will always be yours

What are you doing with your life?

What are you doing with your life?

What. Are. You. Doing. With. Your. Life.

I don't mean it in the way we usually answer that question, I'm not asking where you study, work or party. I'm asking you in the literal but reflective sense.

If the immediate to reaction that question is where we work, study or play, if we allow ourselves to take the profound miracle of our lives, and place it into that one simple dimension. Then I believe that we really have something to worry about.

What are you doing with your life?

Could be a question placed into present and future context. I want you to think about them in both. Currently, yes you may be studying - but is that really all you are? And all you have to offer, yourself and others? We have no idea what we could do in the future, but somehow, with crayons and coloring books went our ability to dream. Will you change the world with your life, or will you be just another Sally? What are you going to do with the miracle you've received, with the light in you and with the oxygen in your lungs. Will you be selfish and live only for yourself, or will you change the lives of others by infecting them with your passion? Will you wait for a leader to follow, or will you take the risk of getting up and taking the first step?

We have no way of telling what might happen, today or tomorrow. We know what we've accomplished in the past, we should learn from it, but not dwell on it - rather look forward into what we could be, where we could go, and the wonders we could do.

Now, what are you doing with your life?

Think before you talk

How aware are you of your thoughts? How often do you truly allow yourself to take a moment for true inspection and reflection of your own inner dimensions? The many parts that make you up, the feelings you feel and the urges that drive you to act as you do?

We would never be able to fully understand ourselves, as most of who we are is purely subconscious. But then, if most of us is subconscious, how could we truly believe that we truly have any control over ourselves? If you don't know or understand the deepest part of yourself, the part that makes you feel as you do, or act as you do. 

I oft find myself thinking how I could truly be one person, physically obviously - but mentally? If I'm so often two minded about things. Who is that other voice inside my head that goes against, or disagrees with certain things I do or say? My conscience, that's what religion says, that the voice you hear inside your head is your conscience. But are we our conscience, or is it a entirely separate entity from ourselves? Since we have no control over it? Or rather another aspect of ourselves. I think the human mind is pretty profound if we are able to have two views of the same thing, but some would probably call that nuts. 

For a long time, and even now, I find myself constantly fighting with myself, because inwardly I feel like I'm a bitch. But I'm constantly fighting with that part of myself, the part that is willing to crush hopes and dreams, and tell people things they don't really need to hear, but just because it comes to mind. Things that hurt. I don't, well sometimes I do, but I try not to? Blurt out everything that comes to my mind. Because I want to be better. 

I don't want to believe that everyone has the root of evil; that that's what humanity is, we're just tainted by society, by our ancestors, by the need to be defensive and rude. Do put up walls, instead of opening doors? To be ruthless instead of vulnerable? Why is being a good person something that's an effort, not something that is natural and effortless?

I'm asking a lot of questions because I'm thinking, you know? Battling with myself, my ideologies, what I want to be, and what I am seen as. 

I just want to think before I talk. 

"I love you"

"Do you love me?"
She was silent.
"Do you love me?" I asked again, hearing and beginning to fear that my voice was giving away the acceleration of my heart as it thundered towards her silent wall that I knew would crack it.
"Answer me." I said staring at her.
"You know I do."
But in that moment as she said it, I saw the lies slip from her eyes, and a thousand years of automated responses come together in a moment of an ultimately blinding clash.

How many times do you return the words "I love you" with what you think is the polite response. Some try and camouflage it, and ommit words, you know the
"and me, you"
"I do too"
"and you."
Type of responses. You see, nothing is quite the same as the response of "I love you" when you say it to someone, even the "too" to me sometimes sounds oddly rehearsed, as if it was repeated over and over again to convince the speaker of their love. I believe to some extent that when we say it, we shouldn't just be saying it, but feeling the words etched into our very souls as they come from our mouths.

The words "I love you" are used so lightly these days, we say it to almost everyone. Teenage fans saying it to their favorite artists all the time, people dating say it only to hope that by saying it, it would then formulate love, guys say it to get into girls pants, and girls say it so they can go and tell their girlfriends that they're so in love. But what about knowing it, and meaning it?

There are many things I take seriously, and many things I absolutely do not because I feel like we have all these little things we do, and say, in order to keep us going, or to keep the faith. I do, however, take words such as "I promise" and "I love you" seriously. And would you believe that I have never said "I promise" without intending to never break it, and "I love you" unless I really meant it. But I take it that seriously because when someone says those words to me, I believe with my heart that they say it the same way I do, with that same certainty, and without a hint of a lie.

I believe that love is something rational. That right before you say the words, you make a decision that changes "like" to "love", that in fact it is not something that is pressed upon you, but something you've chosen to accept. I've said I love you to few people in my life, and every time I did/do I truly believed that I meant it, but as I lie here now - knowing His love - I must stop and wonder if I did ever truly mean it. I based love on the willingness to jump in front of a bus for someone, but never took into the consideration that I was depressed and wanted to jump in front of a bus anyway. When I said I love you, I based it on how the person made my heart beat faster, which I could have gotten from caffeine or how we'd been together for so long, that I must love them by now. But as I lie here, knowing the names of those I said it to, I'm perfectly okay with never speaking to them. Perfectly okay with never thinking about them, and perfectly okay with the fact that maybe I didn't in fact love them as much as I thought I did, or at all.

I know in my heart that I have loved, and I somewhat feel that my nature, even though I'm not from a very emotional family, is that I am a creature of love. I feel love for people intensely, and very quickly, that I feel blinding over protectiveness and a need to shelter and take care of so many in my life, but to a certain extent it scares me because I don't know if it really is actually love.

We think that we know what love is, but I feel like we have no idea at all, that our emotions have been so confined and boxed by a society that tells us what emotion looks like that we think we have it figured out. But really, when we say "I love you" maybe we have no idea at all.

Leprosy Soul

So let's picture our souls as something divine, beautiful almost, when we were born it was made completely in the imagine of God after all. A white page. Some would say that when you commit acts of sin, that it is like black spots forming on your soul - the white page. I'm telling you - you wish. Because then you could just use an eraser, or cover it up, I'm being metaphorical. Keep up.

Our souls are plagued by sin. A priest, quite the dramatic man, that preached in church today, said that "Leprosy is a metaphor for sin" "An illness that each of us are living with, and spreading, and unable to find a cure for" and quite like someone suffering from Leprosy, we watch our souls, the very essence of our beings fall apart, burst into sores, and we rip away at the very flesh of our oh-so-delicate humanity. And we do it for small moments of pleasure on this earth. So like the page, it isn't black spots, or black splurges of ink, rather our souls are taking flame and bits of it, is being burnt off bit by bit, until finally we are left with a fragmented version of what we once were, and ash at our feet. And there really is no way of putting something turned to ash back together - unless of course, you allow yourself to admit that this is what you're doing to your soul. And say sorry - and mean it.

I think we need to stop blaming everyone around us for our own leprosy, it's not about who infected us, but rather that we allowed ourselves to be infected. And continue to allow ourselves to fall apart, instead of fighting our own pride, and to admit that we are nothing and only He can help us.

I feel like a lot of the time, the things I write are centered on God, but I'm not going to apologize, I almost understand that I will lose people in my life because of it. I won't apologize, but I'll say excuse me, to those of you reading who don't understand, but really the center of my life is God. How am I supposed to write, when the very bases of my writing comes from Him and what He has given me?

Please let me know what you think, or if you wanna talk about anything at any point. Follow me on Twitter ok? @LynnSeale

YOLO

You see, there are many moments in our lives that change us forever. These moments, are the ones we remember, the ones we lie in bed at night and dwell on because they either scare us, we wished they had never ever happened or they make us smile uncontrollably. I'm going to ask you, for one moment to not wish that whatever it is this opening paragraph has brought to mind had never happened and to remember.

There are some things in our lives, that have broken us, left our souls undone and our hearts feeling bruised and heavy for years. But you will never truly be strengthened by these moments until you start accepting them. Think for a moment that all the pain you had endured had never happened, that you had lived a life easy and simple. Would you still be the person you are today? The beautifully broken but stitched and seemingly fine but actually confused you. 

If I hadn't had my heart broken so often, and a somewhat, at some stages, very rocky family life or if I had not been suffering with a depression that ridiculed me and turned most of my life black. Then no, I would not have been here, I would not be able to so eloquently ask you to forgive those who have hurt you, to accept what life has dealt you, and to not fold. You see, I no longer feel sorry for myself because of the things I have gone through, I feel redeemed from it, I thank God everyday that He has brought me out of that. You see, light isn't so bright when you haven't been sitting in dark for a long time. The sun doesn't feel as good on your skin if it had not been battered by raindrops. The contrasts in your life, and those moments of heart breaking impact, is what makes you appreciate the absolute beauty in the moments that calm you, hold you content. 

The moments of impact might not be bad, a first kiss, a smile your crush gave you or your first encounter with God. But all of these moments are what rockets your life into a direction, a road untaken, a journey you have not been on before. 

So what the hell, you only live once. YOLO. People ridicule me for saying it, but I truly believe in those words. When they say you live everyday, you do, but you never stop living until you die, it's continuous, so yes YOU ONLY LIVE ONCE. But you have to make the most of it. There is no need to be scared, you will be okay, in the end when your feet are bruised from the rocky road and your face is sunburnt from the glaring sun, you will feel whole again. Always. 

You are only allowed one opportunity in this world, to make a change, to make a mark. Believe it or not, when you're gone, you're gone and that's it. I'm sorry for being morbid, but it really is the truth. So appreciate your moments of impact, let them shove you off into a thousand different directions and emotions, and allow yourself to feel, to be, to experience. You're only allowed one chance, so you better appreciate every single moment of it, while you still can.

Are you being honest with yourself?

We are told over and over again not to lie, that the truth will set you free, that it will allow a sense of contentment and peace within you and that lying always leads to more lies. But when I think of being told not to tell lies, it is often meant that I should not lie to others. Before I actually speak about what I want to, I’m going to tell you the truth, I’m a brilliant liar, and that’s why I hate it. You see, my family and the adults in my life that have over the years somewhat molded me, have to a certain extent openly tried to coerce me into lying to myself. And I went along with it for a long time, and then I woke up to this beautiful mess.

Again and again, society is basically selling us a lie and so is our economy. I’m not some anti –capitalist, I just don’t appreciate being told that the meaning of my life is my material stance. That the brilliance of my art is based on how much someone else is willing to pay for it rather than how much of me is in it. I do not like being told that I am meant to only love one type of person and that I am a rebel because I believe life is larger than the things of this world.

How often are you honest with yourself?

How often do you walk down the streets and openly admit to yourself that you are doing nothing about the fact that people are starving, that there are children who do not have books and we are skipping class, that maybe just maybe, it is not okay that right now a woman is getting raped by a man she is married to. How often do we truly look into a mirror, and look passed the basic flaws we focus on and stare deep into the eyes that the world sees, deep into the windows of a soul so scared of originality and wrecked by the idea that we just simply will not be liked. How often are we honest that we actually have a choice, a choice not to stand back and let the world go raucous, that like men and women before us we too have to ability to stand up and fight for freedom. How often do you let yourself truly express who you are without faking it, without smiling so that no one will ask, and without bending in order to remain unseen?

I want to see you, all of you. I am not scared of your nudity, because I’d rather know you than a doppelganger of what society thought to be a great person.

I’m never going to lie to you. Your education system wants you to become another numbed out version of your predecessors, that you are smart when you can tell them things they already know, and cocky when you allow yourself to think. We are not inspired to be creative, to reach beyond the bars of the prison cells that is our own intelligence, and briefly grasp at a sense of freedom, a sense of majesty and awe that one finds when expressing themselves. That we are not urged to do what we love, but rather do the things others love.

There is only one you, and the world deserves to see the wonder that is you, God did not create you in the mould of someone else, He took his time to create a wonder of this world. And it really is time you start believing it.

Destined for Love

My views of Destiny and Love are somewhat cliche. But I like keeping them that way, in hopes that one day when I do meet the Love of My Life, I will be able to ensure that they feel loved and destined to be with me in the exact same cliche and childish sense.

Our stars are intertwined, there are billions of us in the world and we walk passed one another, day in and day out. You smile or don't smile at the person who passes you in the cafeteria, you only sit next to your friends in class and maybe when you're out one night someone comes up to you and the conversation starts with "You're on my campus right?" and months later, you realize that someone who has made an impact on your life had been sitting two rows up from you in English the entire time. But I believe that chance would have it that we meet those we are destined to meet in our lives at the precise moment we do. That the Love of My Life will come into my life when I am ready, and capable of dealing with the idea. Or maybe I won't be ready, maybe I'll be a blabbering fool and they'd be the one to pat me on the head or rub my back as I puke, but the idea is the same. They will come when they are meant to. Destiny is fate, that you accept what your life has been up till now. It isn't, however, an excuse to become complacent and kinda wait around for things to happen to you, because our fate isn't set in stone. I believe that as we make the choices we do, so our paths take different routes and eventually lead to our final destination.

Romantic comedies has absolutely ruined love for us, we see it as this gorgeous and hypnotic emotion, that puts stars in our eyes, and makes everyone seem perfectly suave. I will admit that I have thought I've been in love before, thrice to be precise. And well, the last one which I was really certain about now seems like a chapter in the book of my life that I will look back at one day and say "Really?" Love is, this absolutely unprecedented and vividly overwhelming emotion, it will scoop you up when you least expect it and settle you down hard on your ass. And you know what? You'll be absolutely thankful that it hurts so bad, because if it didn't, then your person wouldn't have the moment to absolutely take your breath away as they help you up. Falling in love won't be easy, why else would they say falling? They could have said Drifting in love, but it's not a drift, it's a very big tumble and then your world topples upside down. In my life right now, I'm opting to figure things out for a bit. And so for me, this means finding out whether or not I am truly ready to fall on my face and then accept help from the very person that tripped me. I believe love is why we are human, that have the ability to feel that connection is what strengthens us. I have recently also taken to the idea that Love is what God showed us when he sent his only son to die for us. Us, this group of people who worship material wealth, and adore our sin as if it keeps us company. He loved us that much. Now I don't know about you, but I sure as hell am waiting for someone who's willing to love me in any way close to that. fk