painful_bliss Atticus During my travels, however limited, I was blessed to meet many people. To go through each stage of friendship with them and learn to trust them with little secrets of my life but it was fleeting. I knew then as I know now that I would never see most of them again and though sad it gave me insights into the living world and myself. I realized then that there is an Energy in life. A truly Divine Spark. All of us are connected and not just figuratively but substantively in the sense that each life, to an infinite level of degrees, affects every other. Each life touched is a miracle and each memory earned a blessing while at the same time each life is scarred and every memory hurts. When I think back over my life thus far I laugh as much as I cry and surprisingly the things that make me laugh the hardest bring the most tears. Not because they are or were horrible experiences but because I can never recapture them. My earliest memory and my most treasured is of my father. When I was four I came down with horrible stomach flu, which had me vomiting so much I eventually tore my esophagus. While in the hospital my father came. He was sitting by my bed talking so nicely about nothing in particular and though I’ll never be able to remember what he said it keeps me warm at night to know how much he loved me and how much he still does. The painful bliss. Recalling the past is fundamental to human development. Allowing us to move forward and face similar problems with ease so as to strengthen us for the greater challenges. But at an individual level it’s hard to move on, to get over. How can you? Though I ask that rhetorically I truly wonder sometimes how people get over their past. When I look back upon the best times in my life I’m always angry that I allowed it to slip by so quickly without really absorbing as much of it as I could. One of the only exceptions to this was while I was in Australia sailing on the Whitsunday Islands. I truly absorbed the sunset on the boat of our second day. Being that that was one of my last days in Oz I am grateful I did. Not that life has been hard, in fact the time since has been fabulous, but so far my life has broken up into easy chunks. Like the calm before the storm or the lull before the push. For years I’ve taken for granted that when my time came I would be ready but as I get a little older I realize that life goes on whether you’re ready or not and nothing is guaranteed. The bliss of a life lived well with a purpose comes with a great deal of pain and suffering whereas the life lived waiting is just… 050217 what's it to you? who go blather from