Locoemotion

It seems as though I only post when things aren't as they should be. Well, rather, things aren't as I want them to be. Certainly it is easier to journal and write when you are depressed. But depression only brings on despair. And despair is not what one wants to read each night.

No, I am not depressed. Yet I have suddenly been confronted with a harsh reality. I am not where I want to be. Part of me wants to blame the shit that has happened in my life over the last 12 months on my own poor decisions and lack of pursuing what I was truly passionate about. But that would be naive and downright stupid. Having grown up Christian I learned that many in this faith believe that God has a plan for your life. I am not going to argue theology here, but they would go so far as to say that he would place obstacles and repercussions from your actions in order to ensure that his plan would ultimately succeed. I don't believe that for one second. And so, despite having ignored a passion in my life, the ills in my life over the past year have not been because God is punishing me. Nor have they been because I made a "wrong" decision. And it is most certainly not because God is slowly playing his hand, getting me onto the right track.

Rather, it is a more passive stance. He has set rules and laws to this world. Chance. It is through chance that he "controls" us. If I chose to sleep with someone that has HIV, does God actively step in and insure I get infected? No. But he has set it up so that in the DC area alone, 1 in 8 adults is HIV positive. He set it up so that the chance of getting infected varies on protection, health, etc. Nor does he ever step in and stop things from happening. So were I to sleep with someone who is positive, me not contracting HIV would not be because I am a good and loyal Christian.

I am not in control. And neither is God. And because of that, my life has been hell. And it will not be until I can accept that I am not in control that this torment become resolute. It is an endless search for me. No, for us all. How can we find control and stability in a world where our supposed Creator has no control? Why would a God so powerful create such a world and then let it loose to the very laws and movements he first created?

Because it is through all this "shit" of the past 12 months that I am learning what it means to live. I no longer go through motions unassuming. I no longer accept the norm. I am slowly finding passion in a life I never knew could have passion. My senses are slowly awaking from what seems like 20+ years of sleep. Like the development of a child, protected in his mother's womb, away from the world, preparing for that first moment - the rush of sensation: light, sound, smell, pain, warmth, cold; here I am beginning to understand what it means to truly feel. My life is finally my own and no one else's. I have no parents to make decisions, teachers to influence me, no one else to bear my responsibility. And that makes every moment that much more exhilarating, important, intimidating, and passionate.

That is where I want to be. The location, the job, the salary, those don't matter. But if I am not living with such passion and emotion as to be alive, then I am nothing but a blade of grass amongst millions.