Change

Somedays I just wanna sleep all day.  I want to hate the world and how it won't listen to me.  I keep asking the question why won't the world just do what I want it to do.  Why won't things go my way for once?  So instead of facing the day I stay in my cocoon and sulk.  Slowly I sink to such an emotional low and all the mistakes I've made come floating back.  Shame and guilt creep in and the worst feelings begins...the fading of hope.  

However, throughout this whole sinking I have forgotten something.  I prayed for change....

What is change? It's something different than now.  It's moving from the way I live my life now to something different.  As change sets in the way I've always done things gets disrupted and now I find myself sleeping through reality.  That's the thing about change, from a distance it seems great.  Then it happens to us, and we reel and cling to what we know.  We don't like that floating feeling, where we don't feel in control.  But really, that floating feeling is us flying.  It's what we've always wanted, it's that place we should be in.  It's exhilarating, it's breathtaking and yeah...it's scary.  But that's just the process.  Learning how to do something is rarely fun.  Learning how to live life the way it was meant to be lived is hard.  

At the end of the day, the real question arises.  When the change you so desperately want sets in...will you reel and try and cling to what you know...or will you simply free fall...simply trust...simply believe...simply have faith?  When we fly we find what humanity desires most...hope.  Hope for something better.  Hope for freedom.  

Invented

Someone recently told me they thought I could use a good break from "my room in the basement."  .....I like it in my tucked away room in the basement!  This safe place I have which I call home.  I like to sit there and mull around different complaints I have and I like to sulk and feel sorry for myself cause no one is in my cave to tell me I shouldn't.  Yet, my cozy corner room isn't where I alive.  I spend so much time there it has started to perplex me as to why I stay there.

A few days ago I had a conversation with my sister about why I liked music so much.  I told her that when I listen to music I see these fantasy places in my head.  Everything about music translates into visuals for me.  I'm always standing on some cliff-lined coast or a rugged mountain peak.  These are the places I feel most alive and these are the places I wish I was.  The feelings I have in those moments are when I feel live.  Lets just say I definitely don't ever picture my basement room during those songs.

So back to my question, why do I stay there so long?  Its because down there, my weaknesses don't matter.  It is my world that I feel is in my control.  There's no chance for rejection.  There's no chance that someone might not be there when I need them.  There's no chance for failure.  It is a place where nothing changes unless I want it to.

Stepping out is what makes me alive.  Taking risk is when I find fulfillment.  Risking rejection is when I will find the people that mean the most to me.  When we look back on life we never see the moments where we were safe and secure.  We see the moments where life was hard and we overcame.  We see the moments where we went for our dreams and jumped into that unknown. Living life is hard.  We're gonna get hurt, we're gonna fall down.  We're gonna feel rejected and we're gonna wish at times that we staying in our safe places.  Yet, life has so much potential in these scary things.  The good things in life come with sacrifice.  Sometimes, to gain something, we have to lose something.  Sometimes, to reach our lofty goals, we must first fall to the bottom.  When something needs fixing we take it apart, fix it and then put it back together.  Nobody wants their life to be taken apart.  I don't want my life to be taken apart, I want to stay in my basement cove.  But I want to be changed more.  The things I want in life only come with risk.  So I am hope full for change.  I am looking for those moments where I can step out of my basement and live; where I can find those scenes from my head and make them here and now.  From here on, I am in search of that winding dangerous path, because there is where the excitement is, and in that excitement is where life becomes the journey we all long for.  A journey filled with the true joys, the true pains, and the true hope of life.

(Written to the Jimmy Eat World album "Invented")