Crazy Little Thing Called Love

I envy them their public love. I myself have only known it in secret, shared it in secret and longed, aw longed to show it- to be able to say out loud what they have no need to say at all: That I have loved only you, surrendered my whole self reckless to you and nobody else. That I want you to love me back and show it to me. That I love the way you hold me, how close you let me be to you. I like your fingers on and on, lifting, turning. I have watched your face for a long time now, and missed your eyes when you went away from me. Talking to you and hearing you answer- that's the kick. But I can't say that aloud; I can't tell anyone that I have been waiting for this all my life and that being chosen to wait is the reason I can. If I were able I'd say it. Say make me, remake me. You are free to do it and I am free to let you because look, look. Look where your hands are. Now.

Never before have I read a more perfect last page to a novel. These are the words of Toni Morrison, beautifully written for Jazz. These words have taken me to a magical place of awe. How does one even describe what these words inspire? It reminds me of an unsent love letter. Or perhaps a letter sent too late. I am reminded of how I wished for public love. I did not want to have my first love be in secret. These words plead and beg. "If only, if only, you (the lover) would understand how much I love you. If you could understand these words, understand the pure desire of your love, maybe I could say it out loud. I will wait because there is no one else that makes me feel this way" Everyone face this moment in life. Whether it comes as the moment you realize you love someone or the moment you know you will never be able to tell that person you love them, everyone feels it. I do not know which scenario is worse. These words make me think of the person I love now. They make me not doubt, finally, my feelings of love. But also, I am reminded of that first love. I feel as if when time passes one starts to doubt whether one truly loved an individual. I am experiencing that now with my first love, but when I read this passage for a second time I remembered his face. So what is worse: knowing that not only your love, but the relationship you had with your first love will always be a secret- it will never breathe the fresh air, be warmed by the sun or is it worse to be afraid to do the always difficult task of  telling a friend you fell in love?

That I have loved only you, surrendered my whole self reckless to you

That I love the way you hold me, how close you let me be to you. 

I have watched your face for a long time now, and missed your eyes when you went away from me. 

 Talking to you and hearing you answer-

I have been waiting for this all my life 

Love is alive in simplicity. Love is when that person takes up your mind. It is when he or she is the first person you turn to tell good or bad news. Love happens in the everyday. Love is when all you need to survive - to be happy - is that person everyday laying next to you. Because seeing that face, hearing that laugh, holding that person or resting your head on that person's chest takes you to a magical place, a place of beauty that reminds you why exactly you are here on this earth. You wait. You will wait forever, if that is what it takes. Because no one will ever make you feel that fire in your heart, hearing another name will never make you smile like theirs.

"The best love is the kind that awakens the soul, that makes us reach for more, that plants a fire in our hearts and brings peace to our minds." - The Notebook

Paralyzed

Journalism is the practice of storytelling. What draws me to become a journalist is to tell the stories of those people who cannot tell their own. But more importantly, it is the human connection. Intimacy with another individual provides a sense of comfort. It seems as though, I continue to return to human emotions but what other thing is as universal as that? Empathy is defined as: noun. the ability to understand and share the feeling of another. The simple definition does no justice to what empathy truly means. To someone who felt misunderstood his or her entire life, empathy can be a saving gesture. Some people in life have a capacity to love and empathize more than anyone can ever imagine. It is these people who carry everyone's hopes, dreams, agonies and defeats on their shoulders, on their souls. My journalistic hope is to be able to help others feel understood. I want to lift as much of the burden as I can from those suffering.

Have you ever been unable to speak? Unable to say what you mean? It's like you are moving your lips but you hear no noise. This can be one of the most frustrating things to experience. Your mind continues to ruminate over whatever you can't say. The problem is not the inability to process the information. The problem is commanding the right words to make others understand. If one has to constantly explain and dissect to others what he or she is trying to say the person loses the will to talk. The exhaustion from having to simplify and resimplify paralyzes any desire to speak. This paralyzing feeling takes over. It affects your whole life, no matter what you do. Often what we do not want to face during the day haunts us at night. This paralysis transform into nightmares, the kind that wakes you in the night in a cold sweat. Those dreams that do not allow you to go to bed, out of fear that you will immediately fall into that horrible world. The fear paralyzes you. Before you know it, the numbness sets into every aspect of your life. You lose the desire, the strength to fight. Days are all the same blurring together as you walk around like a zombie. It is easy to spot the zombie.  As simple as looking to their eyes. They sit, clutching their knees wishing you would see the pain because they are at a loss for words, so they keep to themselves. They carry the burden by themselves. The secrets linger in their favorite songs:

I try to laugh but cry instead, patiently wait to hear the words you never said. Keeping everything inside. Close my eyes and listen to you cry. This is not goodbye she said, it is just time for me to rest my head. She does not walk she runs instead, down these jagged streets and into my bed. 

Must get Out - Maroon 5

As a society, as humans, we don't want to think or talk about uncomfortable things. My high school history teacher often use to say afflict the comforted and comfort the afflicted. It ties into this belief in what other cultures believe is what needs to happen to grow up. To grow up a child needs to be afflicted, needs to experience some kind of pain or hardship. In the world it seems that the afflicted never get a break from their suffering and the comforted never actually grow up.  If this world is to become a better place, if humans are to care for one another as they look out for themselves, than it requires talking about things that make us uncomfortable.

"Risk more than others think is safe. Care more than others thinks is wise. Dream more than others think is practical. Expect more than others think is possible." - Cadet Maxim

"Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all which have the potential to turn a life around..." - Leo Buscaglia

Suffering

 Suffering, expressed so beautifully in these drawings. I'm reminded of the sentence I read in my Sciology book, "We act and react to things in our environment as a result of the meaning we attach to them."All suffering is a result of losing something that is meaningful: a job, a house, a picture, family or a friend. No matter how small something might seem to another, the only thing that matters is what that small or large thing might mean to a certain person. Who has the right to judge another based on how they are feeling? Suffering is a topic society shies away from. People are uncomfortable with darkness. Recently, reading a novel I found a perspective different from the norm. Depressed individuals deal with the darkness. Instead of hiding it away, these people embrace the darkness, embrace the suffering, embrace how the depression changed them. When someone feels like there is no hope, when one knows how it feels to want to die, one gains a sense of empathy. This sense of empathy gives meaning to life. When you know what it means to be alone you never want anyone else to feel that way. The darkest emotions are the most beautiful. The thing about suffering is it is the worst when you are alone. You feel the terror, you feel all the pain at night. While you lie in bed the only thing going through your mind is how much pain you are in. You think about how that one person leaving sent you into a deep dark downward spiral. The day provides light and salvation from the suffering but it will always be there. If you are lucky enough, you find something that takes you away from the world long enough to re-energize. This thing takes all of your focus so no matter how much you try, you finally have a break from all the pain. But the pain makes you great. Over coming suffering is the hardest thing to do. Getting out of bed, getting through the day takes so much strength. Sometimes all one can do is hope that this day will be better than the last. Maybe this day I won't need to sleep away the numbness. Maybe this day I won't have to fake the smile. Maybe this day I won't cry myself to sleep. Maybe. Helen Keller said, "The world is full of suffering, but it is also full of overcoming it." Though I agree with her, I still cannot comprehend how, if the world is full of suffering, do humans constantly turn their backs on one another?
"Where are you now? Where are you now? Do you ever think of me in the quiet, in the crowd?" -Mumford and Sons