Oh sweet journal. I finally found you amongst the clutter I?ve created. So much not written down. No matter. It?s all in safely stored within my memories and heart.

Grief be the price we pay for love.

Death and life - two twisted total opposites you think it would be easy to tell one from the other. In my case, you’d be wrong.

It is much too hard - sometimes near impossible to put sadness into perspective as it is a relative feeling which comes in varying degrees. It can be like a candle burning gently and harmlessly or a full-fledged fire destroying everything in site and controlled by nothing. And it can be everything little or big thing in-between.

It can bring on a feeling of madness and reclusiveness leaving one lost inside their own head drowned in grief. I've been retreating farther and farther away - forever fading deeper into myself. Left lost in pain and memory. I want out. I'm tired. Tired of a lifelong fight to keep from drowning. The years of fighting painful emotions - with fear and anxiety making it nearly unbearable the longer it goes on until one turn you wake up afraid you're going to live through the turn because you can't imagine another turn feeling like all the turns before . Do I WANT to experience that turn? It's all so unclear.

Some catastrophic moments invite clarity; bring relief, closure, acceptance ... whilst others explode into split moments. You smash your hand through glass, there is blood and shattered glass stained red all over the place. You fall out a window and break your bones and scrape up your skin. Stitches, bandages, salves and herbal ointments relieve pain and heal those wounds. But depression is not a sudden disaster. It is far more insidious. At first it is not even noticeable - perhaps just a deep sensation of slight discomfort or that feeling you get when something isn't quite right but can not put a finger on it. Until one day -- WHAM -- there is a deadly toxin that's made its way into your brain or your stomach eventually leeching into your entire body. And this awful thing that your body has produced is slowly trying to kill you - like a poisonous parasite.

Depression is a lot like a toxic parasite. And over the years it accumulates in your body, heart and mind - total negativity builds up in your system, making life feel more and more unbearable. You won't even notice it coming until it is too late because of how insidious it is. You'll go on thinking all this must be somehow normal, something we all experience until one day you realize that your entire life is just awful - not worth living - a horror that is a big black blot on the clear white terrain of human existence. And that morning finally comes where you DO wake up afraid you are going to live ...

I am not very frightened by the thought that I might live because I am quite certain that I am already dead. The actual dying part, the withering and decay of the physical body is only a formality. My spirt - that emotional being which dwells inside us all (or whatever you want to call it) - that inner turmoil which has nothing at all to do with physical existence is long gone, leaving nothing but a gods-awful excruciating and indescribable pain.

You as you knew yourself cease to exist.

You can't change the way the winds blow but you can adjust the sails. You can toss out things that you no longer wish to see and try to put distance between yourself and your past - but you can never be rid of it or fully escape it. No matter how much stuff you throw away that remind you of someone or something from the past you still can't toss away memories, unless perhaps you get knocked hard enough on the head. The memories will always remain and those memories can warm your heart or tear it apart.

But no matter how good or bad things were, how much joy or suffering endured, those memories are part of what make a person who they are and can not and should not be let go. They need to be shared with someone you trust and love.

Time does not erase the bad memories but it does make them more bearable.

Jealousy is the ugliest of all emotions. There is a big and very obvious difference between jealousy and envy that many do not seem to have any clue about.

Envy is "I love what you have - I wish I had it too."

Jealousy is "I love what you have - and I hate you for having it."

Envy is a natural emotion we have all felt at one time or another.

Jealousy is the hateful, ugly and twisted version of envy.

Make sense now?

The turns have been long and the nights even longer. Sometime I feel as if I am standing alone - lost on the outside looking in at everyone - even if I am standing in the midst of a crowd seemingly enjoying myself. What am I supposed to do with that exactly? I dare not tell just how lost and uncertain of myself I feel -- or what Images I see in the darkness surrounding me. Disobedience. Evil. Greed. Dishonestly to name a few. life shattered in one fell swoop by men who disobeyed the Gods - and in one split-marc learned the torment and anguish of everlasting sin and passed it on like a parasite into hearts of future men.

When might our Gods See this evil some men hold in their hearts? Wrong choices and wrong decisions. Betrayal. Murder. Hate. Greed. Envy. When will they see it is time to cleanse? When comes the point where our creators say "ENOUGH!!" -- and really DO cleanse the earth of all life as I have seen it in my dreams - dreams where all past life perishes except for some flora and the animals and a few of the Gods most trusted men. In my dreams the animals survive - saved simply because they are without sin and evil; they can not reason the same way as men therefore they cannot make a choice based on thought, reason or logic, only instinct and for this they are saved. .

Sometimes what I see in my dreams flashes before my eyes when I am wake. Especially in those moments where I stand on the outside looking in. Images of worldly destruction through fire and flood come to my eyes as if it is happening at the very moment my mind is conceiving the images. The life of man destroyed by fire, wind and water - the elements destroying and drowning them all away. Snuffed until there are none...and it is when we are none that the world is deemed cleansed.

And I see all the animals rise above the land that has fallen away. Floating fantastical - ethereally in the skies, protected by the heavens. Saved from the punishment and destruction that the evil and sin of men caused.

And I wonder if the future men are eternally cursed with suffering because of the actions and sins of men long passed? Is OUR own suffering the ultimate divine punishment of past sin? Is it to be so legendary it pains us like an arrow through the heart until our very last breath?

All of this over a dream. Over visions that haunt my tired soul as I stand in darkness, peering at everyone who doesn't see me, dreaming on my feet dreams no one should dare to dream.

Still I have to wonder what it all means.

It does not matter what else one has if they feel they no longer have purpose. Take that away from man and man usually goes away with it.

Life has a way of bringing out the things you fear the most when the turns are painful, dark and depressing. And when you give in to that fear you open the door to all sorts of things you never expected. Not all of them bad but it is still scary none-the-less. Giving into fear is not the same as facing fear.

Right now it hurts like crazy to get up and be 'normal' - or at least act normal...whatever that persona truly is, I really do not know - but it is not easy to 'fake it and make' it so to say. Everything hurts from the inside to the outside - raw emotional pain that has become physical and widespread. I don't want to get up or wander of socialize and to do so where it is all fake is really torture. I am not good at faking anything because I wear my heart on my sleeve.

I know eventually I have to suck it up and get myself up and about socializing and giving attention where it is deserved. But I really have lost all desire. When it happened exactly I can not be sure - but this hole inside me only grows deeper and darker with the passing of time - confirming how little importance I am in this world. And the more I feel like I am nothing the more the nothing sucks me in until I will become just that -- nothing. Sometimes I welcome the thought of non-existence, there will be no more fight and no more pain but other times it frightens me because existing is really all that I know.

Fear can be so paralyzing. It is the most destructive thing in a persons life if they chose to give into it. But the finality of what it can bring is tantalizing. It is better than carrying on pretending.

I knew I had forgotten to write something in you, journal. My secret (or not-so-secret) gifter and dear friend Topaz had left me a very beautiful and touching gift during the Winters Warming.



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E xcelling all in arts of gentleness,
L eader of guild where twilight dwells serene,
L ady of Valorn, swift to heal and bless,
Y ou cherish all things growing, fresh and green;
A cleric more devout may not be seen.
N or are you far behind when battles call;
A t your attack the fiercest demons fall.

Dear friend, I wish you happiness forever,
in festival and in each common day,
success and joy with every new endeavor,
and may the Mighty Ones we all obey
make smooth the paths you follow on your way.
May Winter see you warm and safe within
your chosen walls, rejoicing with your kin.