I am fortune's fool.

Life has been a cruel mistress these past few years. And I am not one to say I even have bad days. I don't like to generalize. I deal most comfortably in firm realities, without exaggeration. I am certainly a realist. I think you can have bad hours and bad moments, but an entire day of terrible? It would really have to be something awful-- for me to categorize a whole day as bad. So I do not say "past few years" lightly. It is with an unfortunate sigh of resignation. Trial steels the will and fortifies the solidarity of your deepest character. I've grown like weeds through all of it. I've tried so very hard to learn and refine myself through these trials, but sometimes it's just too much.

I need to clarify that I have had a lot of wonderful in my life the past few years as well. There has been more dream than nightmare (even if some of the dream has now faded into night, I can remember the moments, compartmentalized, and appreciate their now soured beauty) in these years. I have made exceptional friends and all of my relationships are the best they've ever been. I have a job I love, a beautiful home, a god-son who fills my heart so completely I'm not sure how he isn't biologically mine, I've travelled, I've read poetry that makes me feel like life has been injected into me, I've learned, I've made memories that are so precious I could explode from the love they fill my heart with. I've had beautiful evenings and face-melting kisses and laughs that are so deep they make you ache inside. I am supremely blessed and eternally grateful for everyone and every time in my life. I mean that. I have no regrets.

It's just that a lot of heavy, almost blinding in its force, situations have happened as well. I don't write nearly enough either. And if I don't write, something in me diminishes. I do not seek pity in the telling of this. I guess I am just trying to be more honest. I've had enough heartbreak for a lifetime. I feel as if I've lived several lives. Several lifetimes. In ways, I've been a completely different person. Far down the same, but I've faked it in the past. I've lived someone else's life. But the wild bird was always beating it's wings against the iron inside, even when I tried to ignore it. The masquerade didn't last long. I re-created my entire life from nothing. I do not feel 25 years old. Although lighthearted in nature and zany by blood, my deep heart is heavy, most of the time. A lingering gravity I've felt since childhood. An understanding and therefor an obligation. I hope it is helping me love harder than ever. That would make it worth it.

From Childhood's Hour
Edgar Allan Poe

From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were; I have not seen
As others saw; I could not bring
My passions from a common spring.
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow; I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone;
And all I loved, I loved alone.
Then—in my childhood, in the dawn
Of a most stormy life—was drawn
From every depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still:
From the torrent or the fountain,
From the red cliff or the mountain,
From the sun that round me rolled
In its autumn tint of gold,
From the lightning in the sky
As it passed my flying by,
From the thunder and the storm,
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view.