Ramblings on Decisions, Love, & Suffering

I wrestle with my mind, with my decisions, with my thought process. Carefully, I over analyze every last detail. The words used in a conversation, the inflections, the look in someones eyes, or the smile. Is it sarcastic? or is it subtle enough to imply something? Each detail adds clutter to the scene. Reading people isn’t my best talent. My stubbornness is genetic. And selfishness, a curse. Decisions? Maybe it’s because I’m a dreamer, someone who read far too many fairy tales growing up. But I’m not just a dreamer, I am a realist too. I know people hurt each other. I know we all do selfish and evil things. I know life doesn’t always turn out how we want.

It won’t happen to me. Oh did I eat those words. Lesson learned. Dreamer meet real life. It doesn’t take much to change everything. A few words. One phone call and life can be flipped upside down. But it’s kind of beautiful though. The brokenness. The suffering. The way each one us gets to experience life differently. We often measure our success by happiness and physical blessings, but can’t success be about finding freedom? Confidence? Security? Don’t those things come from falling down and learning to get back up?

Suffering. Is it really a curse? It seems like we always run from it but maybe it’s the key to our freedom. Maybe it’s the key to letting go. It’s not that we should bring it on ourselves, or that we should wish for it. I just think think we could view it differently when it’s upon us. It helps us realize what’s important. It gives us perspective. It reminds us that the world turns with or without us. You know when you are flying and you look down. Life’s problems just feel so small. Isn’t that a good feeling? Oh, if I could permanently install that thought in my head. How quickly I forget.

Everyone has a different process when it comes to songwriting, but it occurred to me that I wouldn’t be able to write with out a reason. Without finding love and loosing it. Without getting my heart-broken. I wouldn’t be able to write if life was always even keel. It’s the highs and lows that produce songs. It would be impossible to describe something you’ve never felt. Love is the greatest and most powerful emotion in the world but you’ll never be more vulnerable. No one wishes for heartache, but so many beautiful things come from it. It’s a risk but as the saying goes:

‘Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.
~Alfred Lord Tennyson
Lost Love
(From “In Memoriam”)