My Journey

   Today I want to talk about my journey in a very honest way. There are so many different subjects I could write about. I could tell you about my new books that will be coming out in a few weeks, or I could talk about the confederate/wall of rainbows we’ve seen on all of our Facebook pages. Let’s be honest, though. Those subjects have enough people weighing in on them, and it’s boring to even think about at this point. For today, I’m going to concentrate on getting something out of me that has been eating away at who I am for a while now. I’m sorry if I come off as a patient sitting on your metaphorical couch while you play the role as shrink, but I need to step back and be honest for a minute. It would be easy to tell you how well things are going. That’s what people want - positivity. I completely get that, but at a certain point, you have to let everything out that’s eating away at you in the back of your mind, and I feel like mine’s about to burst. Here’s me just being who I am uncensored and without thought to book sales, the latest thing that offends someone, or wondering how to inspire others.

   I’ve hit a snag in my journey that I can’t seem to get past. I started all of this to find my niche, and in so many ways, I did. I found what I love to do in private. I found friends and stories to connect with. Books have been my way of expression and escapism, and I love that, but there’s another part of my journey that has nothing to do with expression or escaping the reality right in front of me. It has everything to do with things like this - understanding, relation, intimacy, kindness, empathy, and maybe most of all, love. You might say those things are simple. You might even think that everyone can understand you because we all feel down sometimes, and even the most different mind has someone out there who can relate to them. When I mention intimacy I hear comments like you just need to get laid. Just those three things can tell you so much about why I feel down right now and like I’m going nowhere. I have a different point of view from most people, and oftentimes when I express it, people don’t understand. As a matter of fact, it’s all the time. We live in a society where everyone picks a side on any major view, and they stick to it. Then there’s me. I don’t. Republican or Democrat, McDonalds or Burger King, Sprint or AT&T, this flag or that flag, short or tall, fat or skinny, and male or female. To me, all of these choices mean nothing. Republicans and Democrats are simply parties that argue for their own points of view in oftentimes juvenile ways, and they represent nothing that’s even close to my views. However you slice it with McDonalds or Burger King, it’s still just a hamburger. This flag or that flag is just one more thing to argue about or burn, depending on your point of view. Your appearance tells me nothing about the soul, and yet everyone has so many preferences and requirements to even be friends with an individual. In my experience, men and women aren’t even that different, but yet there seems to be such a separation between us in most people’s minds. You wouldn’t even think we were the same species sometimes. What I’m trying to say is maybe the problem isn’t that people don’t understand me. It’s that I don’t understand them anymore. We’re in a world where people love to complain and take sides about everything. They love to call intimacy sex, and then go tell all of their friends about their experience with the person they took to bed, and in the worst cases, even post pictures of it online. To me, intimacy is still something that’s private. It’s more than sex or anything physical. It’s that place where the most private parts of yourself physically and mentally are safe with another person. As far as I can tell, intimacy died with the digital age. We can’t even think something without putting it out there for the world, much less keep a secret for a person we’re supposed to be intimate with. As for kindness, I don’t see any. We pretend to be kind. We say a silent prayer for people and hit like on Facebook and think that makes us a great person, but all the while, we do nothing. We lie to ourselves and say we’ve done our part when in reality, we’ve done absolutely nothing.

   Finally, there’s love. Where is it? They say it still exists, but I don’t see it at all. In a society where we’re always looking to trade up cars and houses, somehow we’ve managed to treat people like possessions, too. We’re constantly trading up for a better girlfriend or boyfriend, and in the worst of cases, spouse. Our love is no longer true or intimate. It’s contingent on beauty, money, and power. It isn’t strong, enduring, or only for the one we supposedly care for most. It’s with condition and for whoever can meet those special conditions we cook up in our minds. We call them needs. We need a partner who looks at least this good, is this educated, makes this much money, and is respected this much. Never does love enter the equation. It’s all practical, like we’re picking out a new car.

   Finding my niche wasn’t all about a career. It was about finding my people, too. I’m still searching so hard, and if I’m being honest, I’m losing hope. I’m not the optimistic person I was a few months ago. I try to pretend I am when I talk to others because I don’t want to ruin their day, but here’s the truth. I don’t see the grand purpose in the things everyone cares so much about, I haven’t found someone I can share the lightest parts of my day with and it stay private, much less the deepest parts of who I am, likes and dropping a quarter in a homeless person’s cup have been mistaken with making a difference, and worst of all, we’ve forgotten how to love. People have become objects we can use for temporary company, sex, better status, easy money, and arm candy. They’re the same as a really expensive car that screams money and gets plenty of attention, and that’s a shame. There’s no love. There’s no intimacy. There’s just me, and these are my thoughts. This is what feeling defeated and alone is like. This is stepping back and really looking at society and saying is this it because if this is all that’s there for me when it comes to relationships, then maybe I’m better off continuing this journey alone.