who's got the claws in you?

We all want things. We want to have that perfect body, to have that perfect boyfriend and overall amazing life. We want these things because we want happiness and we think these things will give us it. Sometimes we want something so bad, so obsessively, that it alters our lives. Our lives are shaped by our desires. Everything we do is motivated by a strong desire. However indirect the particular thing we are doing is from what we actually want, it can still easily be traced back to a strong desire of ours.
Most of us understand this pretty easily with some directed thought, but have you ever thought about what would happen if we got something before we actually wanted it? Would we still, in the end, want it? Or would we need to lose in order to realize the desire we have for it? Or can we just simply not want it at all because we were never given the chance to envy it in someone else before ourselves?
For example, let's say we were born, or rather came of age, with a perfect body. Everything evenly proportioned and envied by others, but we weren't yet old enough and well versed in society to want it and neither were our peers and friends. We looked at our body with a bit of disgust and acceptance, and our friends didn't notice the perfectness of it, only the difference between theirs and ours, so instead of praising God for the gift he gave us, we either resented it's uniqueness or just merely accepted it and didn't give it a second thought.
Now that's kind of a poor example because later on in life we would most likely realize how much we have been blessed with and be cocky about it, or we would lose it and curse our younger self for letting it get away pretty much due to the fact that everything is very centered around personal image and vanity now. But what if we kept it, and didn't ever realize what a gift we had? Wouldn't that be weird? When you think about that, it makes you wonder whether or not you have an unnoticed and ungratified blessing? And, chances are, you probably do. We all probably have some talent that is not receiving the gratification it deserves, irregardless of whether or not others recognize it in us.

you can go, you can stay

I want to be in love. In that really big way. In the amazing movie and book way. The way Edmond and Ada are in Cold Mountain. The way Sarah and Daniel are in Taming the Beast. The way Benjamin and Daisy are in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. The way Sayuri and the Chairman are in Memoirs of a Geisha. I want to have what they have, to feel what they feel.
In each of those stories, they lose. War and death tear apart Edmond and Ada, society and brutal passion come between Sarah and Daniel. Benjamin and Daisy are lost to age and time, and Sayuri and the Chairman lose to a war and society beliefs. They can never quite get it together, it never works out. But in the end, no matter what has happened and who they ended up with, they're all still in love with each other. Despite everything, what they feel doesn't waver, not even a little, and the fact that they aren't with each other anymore doesn't make a difference. They found each other by pure luck and were only together for a short period of time, but those few moments they had were enough. They all had the love at first sight part down, but without the rest of the fairytale and even though they never got the fairytale ending, the memories of the beginning and middle were enough. They accepted that they can't have a perfect ending because everything ends and nothing is forever.
I know it's not real, and maybe love like that can never be real. Maybe we all settle for what we can get and the rest is just in our heads. Maybe there are no soul mates and maybe there is no love at first sight. And maybe that's why they all lose. Maybe we can't have everything. Maybe true love is something we just can't keep.

Nothing lasts

Nothing lasts. Everything fades. Everything. Whether it takes years or merely a moment, it doesn't matter, because it will fade. It's not forever. How could it be? We aren't even forever. I've realized that time is our enemy as well as our ally. It can dull our greatest and wash away our worst. It takes everything and it makes everything, but it's not in control. We are. It can take away love and it can take away hate, it can take away beauty and it can make age, and it can take us, but we are still in control. All of those things are obviously beyond our control, but that doesn't mean we should be dependent on it. That doesn't mean we should spend all of our time preparing and expecting and worrying. What it does mean is that we get to choose. It means we shouldn't do anything, there should be no "shoulds". It means we get to do whatever we like. We get to decide. We don't decide what we get or how it's given to us or how long it will last, all we get to decide is what to do with it while we have it. So we should do what makes us happy for as long as it will make us happy, because nothing lasts. Someday everything will fade and sometimes things will fade and we'll fade with them and somethings things will fade and we'll stay exactly the same. And in the end, it will all work out or it won't. And if it doesn't, we should start over. Because we get to decide. There are no rules to this thing and there are no accidents. It's ours. And we only get one. So do what makes you happy, or don't. The beauty is, it's our choice. There are no rules.

As I come back home to you...

I was sprinting. My legs straining, my pulse racing, sweat dripping down my face, yet I felt nothing. Yards turned into miles, miles turned into years, yet I was still running. I must have been physically exhausted beyond belief but I felt none of it. Physically, I felt fine. Emotionally, I was a wreck. I was stressed, panicked. I felt as if I could never stop running. As if my feet rhythmically hitting the road were the only thing keeping me alive, my only claim to existence, and stopping would mean quitting, giving everything up. Giving up everything I had worked for, all the miles and years I had left behind me would mean nothing. I wanted to stop, but I needed to keep going. I was torn. And then, there it was. A long wooden dock, marking the end of my trip, the end of my existence. Beyond it was millions and millions of miles of deep, dark, blue water surrounded dense, luscious woods. I'd never seen anything that beautiful and terrifying. I knew what I had to do. I had to jump into it, to immerse myself in the deep, blue nothingness and give up the race. But it's not so easy, giving it all up. So as I reach the end of the dock and the rhythmic thumping of my feet against the wooden boards turns into silence. As my heartbeat slows and my limbs throb, as my body adjusts, as I wait for the inevitable wave of nausea that soon follows a hard workout, I just stare at the water. At water so deep that even if it was the clearest water in the world and you had those goggles with the funny light on top, you still couldn't even begin to see the bottom. I want to cry. Because it's beautiful and because it's awful and because I know what it means. I take off all my clothes, clothes I've worn forever, through all the miles and years. The clothes I have endured everything imaginable in. And then I sit on the edge of the dock naked, not caring about inevitable splinters in places wood should never touch and not caring about what the other people, lining the shores, hidden by the trees, must think because here they don't matter, barely even exist. I dip my feet in tentatively and "test the waters". It's cold but surprisingly comforting and I stand up, not wanting to leave it's comfort, and bend over getting ready to dive. As if I'm only going to dive into the local swimming pool on a hot summer day or off the sun deck on my beloved boat as I've done so many times before, where I know what awaits, yet I know this is different. I have no idea what awaits, all I know is that I'm ready to find out and all my doubts and uncertainties are washed away by the excitement. So I do it. I go through the motions. My legs bend and I leap off the dock. Up and over, in a perfect rainbow. And it's all going so slow. I can feel myself glide through the air and my brain registers as I'm about to hit the water. My fingertips touching the water, at first very gently, making them tingle. Then it's a blur as my body slides into the water. Every single inch of my body sits up and takes notice as the darkness closes in around me and I become the water. And I know, in that instant, that this is exactly where I'm supposed to be.

like the end of sad movie

I want to mess it all up.
To take all the things God has blessed me with, thought me worthy of and throw them away.
Screw them up beyond repair.
I want to take that extra forbidden step and cross the line,
I want to make that horrible mistake
And know what I'm doing while I'm doing it.
I want to know that I'll never get any of it back,
That by doing this, by stepping over the line, I'm ruining something really great.
I don't exactly know why, I just know that what's supposed to be good for me, isn't at all what I want.
But then again, I do want it. I want to be happy.
So why then, would I cringe with desire at the thought of messing it up?
Why does my mind race deliciously at the thought of screwing myself over?
Because I want to be happy, at least I think I do, doesn't everyone?
But is happiness so much of an alien-state that we can't bear the fact that our dreams may actually come true?
That we'll no longer have something to complain about, something to burden us.
Because how would we act, how would we be if there wasn't a lacking part in our life?
How would our conversations, our mannerisms even our relationships change,
If there wasn't anything to complain about?
So much of our lives revolve around the fact that we want more, need more, deserve more
That when we get it, we don't even have enough sense to hold on to it.
Or is it that we're afraid?
Afraid of happiness, afraid of putting an end to the chase.
In any case, is that really what we've reduced ourselves to?
Has happiness really become the enemy?

I won't waste a minute without you?

Shared goals. Common ground. Similar interests. Respect. Comfort. Trust.
Is that love?
Passion. Intensity. Going insane. Going to extreme, even dangerous lengths.
Is that love?
Which is it? I can't decide.
Is it better to live comfortably, feeling perfectly fine or live wildly, feeling everything intensely?
Is it comfort or passion?
I don't understand.
Which works? Which doesn't?
It's nice to have respect for each other and sensibility and everything but is that really love?
I think love is when you meet that person that drives you insane. The one person that fills that hole inside you and you feel so complete that you don't know how to function. You've lived your entire life without that piece and now you don't know how to live with all that passion.
I think it's when it's good it's really good and when it's bad it's really bad. It's so intense your moments of passion can be violent and brutal, bloody even.
I think it's walking around feeling like half your body is missing when they're gone.
I don't think it has anything to do with respect and having things in common. I think it's knowing the other person so completely that you're no longer two people. And when you're together, you're one. Two bodies, one soul. The "beast with two backs" in the sexual sense.
But if it is, then why are so many people living without it?
Can all that intensity really last? Or will you die of an overdose of each other?
And if you do actually die, then wouldn't it be worth it? Because what's living without half your body?