On Pain and Comfort

Pain. 

Suppression. 

Survival. 

Loneliness. 

Confliction. 

Self-hatred. 

Anger.

Compartmentalization.

Rage. 

Hopelessness.

Hate. 

Depression.

Desperation - Focus...

Compassion.

Desperation - Focus!

Compassion. 

Desperation - Focus...

Compassion!!! 

...Survival. 

Empathy.

Absolute exhaustion.

Apathy.

Oh, yeah. I've been there. Survived it for far too long. Committed myself to false institutions and to perspectives and outlooks that weren't my own. I felt trapped. Enslaved... 

By a military that told me where to go and what to do when I got there. 

By a religion that told me that I was born disgusting and needed to beg the God that created me that way for his forgiveness and redemption.

By a church that taught me that pain is atonement. 

By a culture that told me that a man's duty is to sacrifice and to serve to the complete neglect of the self. 

By a marriage that told me that I was never good enough. 

By a society that told me that idealists, philosophers, and writers no longer have a place in the world.

By a world that forced me not to dream while teaching me about the heroes who have.

 By a government that prefers us to act as a cog on the wheel of capitalism than to think and progress in our own journeys. To work our lives a way for a chance to achieve "The American Dream." As if there is only one. 

Don't question, just accept. Don't think, just go through the motions. Get yourself into debt and never climb back out of it. Read headlines and speak about them, but never act on the words that are spoken. 

I'd reached my absolute limit. I'd lived over a decade as a man so overwhelmed that I feared nothing. Felt nothing. For me, the ultimate choice was simple. Die trying to live the life that had been set before me, or challenge and change it for the chance to experience an emotion I couldn't recall: Happiness.

 Happiness had become an idea to me. Not a thing to be experienced, but one to always to strive for. Not a state that could ever occur in the present. 

Happiness was tomorrow.

It was an illusion to create for others since I couldn't achieve it for myself. Happiness was my greatest failure...something everyone else could seemingly obtain, but that I could not. I'd spent many sleepless nights trying to define it. To experience it. 

In truth, I was only enslaved by myself. 

...So I set myself free.   

I obtained an honorable discharged from the military, found a transition job, and will be moving to an exciting career next month.  

I had a very serious and heated discussion with God - it contained too many cuss words, and allowed us to move on to more progressive conversations. I learned what God is, in truth, outside of the way men have defined him.

I divorced the woman who was not for me. 

I sold the over-sized house and the yard so large I couldn't spare the time to maintain it. 

I began to dream. 

I published my first book. 

I learned to tell my story in a way that helped others to create their own. 

I challenged and overcame every institution that had held me down and created a new life. 

Peace. 

Presence. 

Contentment. 

Passion.  

Thought. 

Ambition.

Dreams.

And finally,

...Comfort.

I learned to stand on my own two feet, and God - the universe itself, which he created - gave me the best gift I've ever received in the entirety of my existence.

Her. 

She, who augments my strength. 

She, who enhances my happiness.

She, who challenges my perspective. 

She, who helps me fight my battles. 

She, who supports my dreams.

She, who understands the words I never write or speak.

She. 

There was perhaps a time when I feared happiness, but that time is long past. There was perhaps a time when I held onto my demons as the only thing that ensured my survival - I have since let go of them all. There was perhaps a time when the world as it stands now was nothing but a candle whose flame I concealed in the one safe place I could offer: my soul. Now that flame has become my reality. 

Not a child's love, but that of a man who has seen the world and the darkness in it...a man who has learned to identify the light.

A man who does not fear pain, but who welcomes comfort and understanding.

A man who understands loyalty and would do absolutely anything for the ones he loves.

And what symbol is there that can ever represent such a love? There is only one.