Rudderless

As I shutter to the freewill of the seas raging in full force around the hull of my life, I am captivated by the unmerciful silence of my mind. My emotions have been beaten out of my skull, transpired into the boards of my vessel, soaked into the grains of my own demise... I stare listlessly at the chaotic, but welcomed scene of impending disaster as it encircles my soul. Flames etch out an emblazoned, definite aura on the immediate horizon ahead like a harbinger of an eternal abyss just over the edge of my path.... The storms cover my life in cold waters of disbelief, hopelessness and pain...... undulating between glimpse of sunlight which appear as mirages to my sanity... I pause to witness the moon, circling in pendulum motion against the darkened sea skies... I am rudderless.

Bound to cycle from port to port, trading wares for cash.

Her words resonant over the sirens of the sea, "You must now pay for all the things that you have broken".....

 

I reach out my hand for hers. I reach out my hand for my daughter....

I am alone. 

I miss the memories now faded, once discarded back to the emptiness of my heart.

I have nothing left to hold onto. I have nothing left to journey onward...

I am defeated and disenchanted. 

I am rudderless and alone...

 

The shadows fill the scene as the ship eases into the calmness of the respite harbor.

For I know not where I will go next, but I pray in one of these ports, I shall know peace...

And purpose.

And life without storms...

I know I am undeserving in her eyes.

I weep in silence.

 

 

 

The Last Performance

 As I sit here contemplating the next steps I must take to secure my own future and the imprints of the rest of my days upon the substrate of my life, I feel isolated and alone. Gone are the feelings of hopefulness, joy and glee of her smiles, visions of a family together, the plans for my now uncertain future loom over me like a closing curtain on an overplayed stage... the backdrop of my decisions, or indecisiveness haunting what's left of my marquee performance. 

Robbing what's left of my sanity and my passion in these moments, my thoughts collapse...

Thick, red velvet curtains cloud the audience from the view from my weary position. 

Gazing downwardly at the worn planked stage floor, I am saddened....for I sit alone on my tattered wooden stool, forgotten and erased. My name long since removed from the emblazoned billboards and posters of everyone's life.

Is this my last performance?

For I keep arriving to the stage, every single day, but alas there is no music, no orchestra, no lighting, no audience. 

I play along, shrouded in the aged garments of my character's role, but oblivious to the fact that the theater is closed, boarded up and left abandoned... I exist only in the darkened shadows. 

I surmise that I have remained here hoping, praying, believing that the audience would return if I performed well enough, if they missed me enough, if they longed for something I possessed that was of some intrinsic value, something left to hold onto to, that I was something worth remembering and loving.

Alas, I am not. I never was...

Nothing really matters...

I am but a memory of my fleeting brilliance, my abdicated potentials and my forsaken dreams...

Outwardly, I am strong, bearded and tattooed. Bold, passionate, vigorous even virile....

Inwardly, I weep for the ones that I have lost. The moments, the memories...

I shoulder pails of tears for the torture, the pain and the abuse that has been levied upon me...

I weigh and measure the multitude of fears, insecurities and the assumed realization that at my age I don't have much left... both to offer and what's remaining in the proverbial hourglass. 

Sigh...

But the performance must go on...

For life isn't about one's pity or circumstance.

It is about the next step you take, the next decision you make, the next fear you face.

Even in my pain, I will continue to love, to mourn those I have lost, the ones that deserved so much more than I had to give, and to be the man, and more importantly the father that God intended for me to be.

Let the curtains rise...

Moments...

I remember the moments stretched out before me as your body once did...Your hair, eyes and glances captivating every facet of my senses.... every corner of my soul....filling every deficit in my heart.

I remember the calm, the peace and the immediate and unconditional acceptance of everything you were and everything you thought you weren't....

I felt your heart as easily as I felt your flesh...

It was fluid, moving and vulnerable...but always perfect. The utopian meshing of two kindred souls, bodies and spirits in moments that I cannot explain away as mere convenience, mere opportunities, mere occurrences... 

For Perfection is never incidental.

Alas, when you bare your soul to another, you unleash all of yourself... the parts that you want to show, to put on display....and the portions of yourself that you hide from the world. Shrouding them from sight in fear, shame, guilt, hurt or a willingness not to be judged.

A desire to be loved... Simply and completely.

In a way, we all just want to be seen...

We hurt each other. Now we must remedy one another through love, not desertion. We must take the time to heal, but not time to forget... For love knows no boundaries, no time and no space...

It exists solely for its own sake, its own growth and harvest...

The world may never comprehend our moments and you may cast them aside as happenstance, devious, disruptive and misguided, but the true memories will forever echo in the chambers of truth where no one can erase.... or belittle their existence...

I sit here waiting for my friend...

Believing in the promise of your words...

Holding on to the memories and moments that so effortlessly washed between the shores of our souls.....

Longing for your voice, your smile, your touch, your friendship....

Your perfection...

Tears

 I sit here in the darkness...

Unable to breathe...

Tears carving out tributaries of pain and sadness along the surfaces of my floor... Rivers of regret washing my dreams and intentions out to sea...

The salinity of my sadness displacing the sanity of my existence...

Hoping for once that the nightmare would end and I would arise in peace and In His grace.

Alas, I am alone once more. 

Deservedly so by most accounts...

My own deficits...

But, the hope of His eternal promises keeping me whole in the midst of this despair, this darkness.

I reach through the abyss for His mercy.

I bow my head in prayer...

Forgive me Father.

Restore the brokenness.

Give us strength.

Comfort us...

Wash away our tears...

Hold on...

I have no idea how we ended up here. Words being used against us, dreams shattered, memories lost,  and lives in shambles. I am so overwhelmed by sadness, grief and the loss of our friendship, the broken heart that I carry around every single day....

I am sure on some levels in the simple darkness of these moments, you feel the same....we have always felt each other....

I am sorry for the pain that I have caused... The mistakes that I have made...

I simply am sorry. 

For all of it.

I am not saying that I am sorry for the benefit of the court, the legal teams, the psychologists or anyone else who wants to judge, condemn, critique or pick apart my life, my words and my actions... I know I haven't been a perfect person to myself, to you or others... I came from brokenness. We both did to some extent....

We all fall short of perfection; we all hurt others and try to overcome our pasts, our miscues, our weaknesses, our brokenness, our shortcomings and our fears...I am perhaps more self aware, harder on myself and empathic than most, it doesn't mean that I am a bad person...

This was never what I intended. I just wanted to figure out how to get back into something with the  resemblance of a family. I wanted to prove on some levels that I wanted to be accountable and counted as her father, to be a partner. I thought it would prove my willingness to be in your lives, not divide us further. Truly...

I look back now as I weep in silence and feel that our moments were a mirage and I cannot fathom how we lost each other again...how we allowed the pain to separate us, to take away the greatest love we would ever know in this lifetime. 

I don't care if these words are used against me...

Let them judge. They haven't walked in our shoes, experienced our steps, our moments...the memories and vivid technicolor scenes that we have shared are more than most will ever wish to understand or experience. It has been larger than life and more moving than multiple lifetimes...

Alas, I am forever saddened, dismayed and brokenhearted at being apart from this, from what we have shared for so many years on so many levels..

Words are what we always had with each other and our love was never something easily explained, justified or understood by anyone outside of the close knit confines of our souls...it is what brought us together and led you to make unfathomable and unpopular choices in your own life to be here and it is the same conviction that allows me to be bold, honest and open about my feelings, even today...

I don't know how to move forward sometimes. I don't know how to carry on when the pain and loss is so vast and life changing. Regardless of what labels are applied to me, my walk or my words, I won't denounce my feelings...

it isn't who I am...what this was ever about.

This was never about conformity or other people's approval. This can never be understood, explained, justified or validated on paper...for it doesn't reside in those chambers...

It isn't why I reached out 8 years ago, why I drove to your parents house to see you again after 19 years apart, and what we carried in permanence, etched on our souls for the past 26 years...

As the days apart stack up, I can only pray.... I ask God for guidance, wisdom, forgiveness and strength every single day... For myself, for you and for our daughter...

I truly thought we were making progress. I believed we were getting close to just being good co-parents, a resemblance of friends again, sharing stories and moments in our lives.... listening and understanding each other and allowing God to heal us and work in our lives....

 

I am still here in the darkness...

I am still here praying...

When all hope is gone...... hold on.

Anticipation

In 22 and 1/2 hours, I will lay eyes upon my child. After thousands of hours of separation and moments of fear, depression and sadness, I carefully anticipate the event. The emotions of being near my best friend, her energy, her presence, her influence in these moments... will be overwhelming but it is a gate that I must pass through...

For the certain and unmistakable joy that will most likely bring me to my knees in humility and unleash the weight of the days I sat alone missing so much --- in silence, alone with God.... alone in prayer... alone in renewal.... alone in change...

I cannot shake the feelings that have defined the outlines of my heart, my life and my purpose in this lifetime.... even though I sit idle like an once appreciated item left alone in a dusty, shackled barn, I know in my heart, I still have life inside...

I cannot yet paint the canvas... as I cannot yet feel the moment.
I cannot yet express my feelings... as I cannot yet allow myself to breathe...

For so many days, I truly thought I would never see my daughter again...
Like an apparition, I was merely spoken about in lost parables or phases of brevity, of mourning, of loss, of times once lived.....

God, give me the strength, the confidence, the faith and purpose to be your intention in these moments. Allow others to see my changed heart, my changed purpose... Allow them to see you in me.

As I slowly gather my things to take the journey, I pray in silence a prayer for peace and love....
and believing that all things are possible through Christ...

Father, I am humbled and grateful for everything, every moment, every blessing....
every breath.

I pick up the brush, the canvas is set...
Let God create this masterpiece.
Amen...

Ocean

"Like a lighthouse I have been shining bright, through the dark for the both of us....and I've done it out of love, it's not enough, but God how I wish it was......"

Every time I hear the song, Ocean, it stops me, it moves me, it breaks my heart....

An artistic rendering of a story of love broken apart as the woman tries desperately to hold onto to the man and his true sad stories, lies, brokenness and depression. It echoes my own walk through space and time and my own misery at not being strong enough to hold it all together..... for myself or the both of us...

My lies were never to deceive as much as to not confront the reality of the moments before me. Mentally, I struggled to come to terms with the changes, the modulations, the nuances of the moments and their impact...the risks that were taken, that continue to be taken for this love, for me, for our family don't go unnoticed or unappreciated...

I only wish that this was enough, then or now, to swim in, to lose yourself in my waters, to risk dying, to battle the uncertainty of my demons and their affects for the promise of true love. My life is a dichotomy of parts, where the sadness washes over the purest of hearts, where my deeds, generosity,  and concerns are lost in the bitterness of a few words, where my sacrifice gets mistaken for aloofness or an unwillingness to be completely present, where my heart is questioned...

The waves, the waves, the waves, the waves...

My heart that breaks with every moment apart...every day, every mile, every minute, every moment...
My heart that has lost so much in this lifetime.... afraid, broken and timid in these times...

I own my faults, my lies, my failures, my transgressions...
I truly wish I was a better man in most moments.
I don't want to find out how much lonely I can take, before we lose this....

The waters have been ravaging for some time, but there is a certain stillness in the storms that have passed this year... a renewal of strength, of season, of purpose, a healing......a healing defined not by what was taken, but what was restored. God's faith in us, and our faith in Him....a faith for our family.

God is with us....
This time He walks with us
He leads me beside the still waters....

Truly, I wish you would trust that I won't lose you again...
I won't let you drown, I won't break your heart...