Good 2021 my loves,
I’m just gonna jump off board here and get into it, because I have a lot of questions and a lot to say.
I understand the whole saying; I get the concept. Masters of our own fate. Captains of our own souls (or ships, whatever.)
I hear it. I know it.
But I wish I could I see the future. I wish I could see if I’m mastering this well enough because lately I sure don’t feel like I am. I wish I could see exactly which direction the ship is headed. I wish I could see how bad it’s going to hurt when I get where I’m going.
I know we’re supposed to embrace the seas, and love the sights. You know the whole, stop to smell the roses thing. But the truth is, I don’t really like the smell of roses. I just want to see if the roses bask in the sunlight or if they get trapped in a vase. I want to know if they get cut up and put in a window, or if they get to be settled into the ground with permanent sights of mountain tops.
Does the ship make to the other side? You know the perfect pirate picture: blue skies, white sandy beaches, green trees; the vibrancy of life and health (well okay, pirates aren’t notorious for having a lot of health but you get the picture, right?) Or does the ship get pulled under? Does it get cut off by my tsunami of grief and regret? Does it make it the shore just to be pulled under and crushed by something it passed a long time ago?
How does one end a life knowing they are in the exact spot they were always meant to be? Better question: how does one live a life knowing they are in the place they were designed to be? How does one master their fate while they live in it?
I know we’re not supposed to know; we have to live on faith and trust (and probably some pixie dust) that we’re doing this right. I know there’s humans out there who say they have no doubt in what they do because they are living peacefully within themselves. I just dont buy it from the amount of people who say they live without that disconnect.
I think they bury the questions to have a life they can fathom. But what would they do with that pseudo confidence if they knew there would be in no pain along the way, between the journey and the destination? What would they do if they thought the ship would never sink? What would they do if beauty never became destructive?
There’s so many questions in regards of life, and love, and fate. As beautiful a notion as being the captain is, I think its equally unfortunate for both those who work hard and hardly work. There is no one in the entire world who is going to get you to where you need to be. Its just you on that boat, really. It’s up to you to get to where you need to be. It’s up to you to die peacefully and whole. It doesn’t matter if you are religious, if you believe in the stars, an entity, or science; at the end of the day. It. Is. All. You. There’s a weight in that responsibility for yourself that most people don’t often remember they are lifting.
Nobody will tell if you the projected pain is worth the earth moving situations you are in right now, but yourself. And sometimes that’s cruel. Most of the time, the easiest things that we can say and do, are the hardest to survive. Sometimes the pleasantries of truth, are the very things weighed down with unmasked pain.
The only thing to do is to surround yourself with the people you can rely on; the people you love and trust. Even when it’s hard to love and to trust. Even when sometimes mastering feels more brutal than the oppression of coasting.
Sometimes the best way to answer all my questions, is to accept the pain and the emotions willingly. There will always be the constant gamble as to which is better; diving blindly or proceeding the caution, based on how much “living” you can take.
The questions are hard. Living is hard. Finding the place where you’re meant to be is hard. Because what if you’re 47, and realize you ignored your calling? What if you’re 32 and realized you didn’t pick the soul who matched yours effortlessly? What if you’re 88, and dying without ever really having embraced the pain to take the gamble for the life you really needed?
When I was in highschool we were constantly reminded by the band director that “good is the enemy of great.” And for some reason it sinks more into me every passing year. Can you sacrifice what is good about your life in the attempt to find what would be better? Or does there come a point where you can be comfortable in what you sought out to begin with?
I mean obviously I don’t know. I only know that a beautiful life doesn’t mean there’s no pain. A beautiful life isn’t always built on reckless truths. And reckless truths aren’t always absent from a beautiful life. There are fine lines everywhere, and we are really just acrobatics of life tight rope walking until we fall into the places where we need to be. A constsnt plan walk waiting for the exact moment we can fall and sink into our own waters.
It’s nothing short of wonderful and awe inspiring. It’s nothing short of painful and heart crushing. But we’re here and we’re in it. We’re all living on the same rope waiting for our little piece of ocean to swallow us up. There are days we are flies in glass boxes and days we are the great whites of the seas.
The Captains. The masters. Who lost their maps in the wild the moment we stepped out into the world. You will find your way, and it will be worth it one day. “The emotional outbreaks,” the pain, and the beauty. Somewhere out there, one day, the answers will come and we’ll know where each path was worth it. Even if it rips us apart before we become whole.
Faultfully in the heart of the tsunami,
Gabe
Thoughtfully and Faultfully, Gabe 