The Invitation

from Joey - Wednesday, January 18, 2006
accessed 1044 times

The bold bits are a piece of writing called "The Invitation", the rest is my answer.

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to meet your hearts longing.

What do I ache for, how I wear this ache and why.

I long for the day when guilt is born by the shoulders of the guilty rather than by those of the innocent.

I long for the day that every day the perpetrator lives is one day too long for them, the way every day is another day too long for the ones they harmed.

I yearn for one days respite from my perpetual thought. Just one day in a lifetime of perfect peace. A day to lay down my sword, take off my tattered armour warmed by the unwavering knowledge that I won’t be needing it.

I ache to be understood and accepted wholly and solely. For company that doesn’t lean on me and drain my energy. Company that doesn’t lean back and so feel cool by distance. A steadfast and enduring, comfortable yet challenging, accepting but with a strong mind. Independent company.

I waited till I was able to pursue my longings from a position of balanced strength, now found, I have launched my vessel in a direction unknown, sailing blind, going by feel, trying things out, leaving my paths mind open to refinement in an attempt to be as effective as possible in an area I know very little about. But sailing none the less.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

The painting of a fool, bold and colourful. The mind of a fool, confident, creative, never still, it takes guts to be a fool. The best ones are the ones that hold nothing back, put their heart and soul into their performance, lay it all out to achieve their goal of a smile. The only way I’ll look like a bad fool is if I don’t put my all in the ring for

love,

dreams

and the adventure that is life !

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain. I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it, or fade it, or fix it.

At the centre of my sorrow is a room with a million corners. I have searched them all. Seeking to understand its source, familiarise myself with its ways, know well its scent. So I can use its omnipresent pull as a tool to further understand myself and slowly obtain the power to respond rather than react. To walk thru the ocean of my sorrow, surrounded by the cries and screams from below the waters and feel at peace amidst the chaos.

While in my room with a million corners, I’m always kept by the company of sorrows brother. To converse with pain in a room on the floor of an ocean of sorrow is risky. It’s now the only way I can stand up in front of a crowd and boldly say that nothing can bring me down to a place so low that I could not recover. My tool box is full, my coping mechanisms highly refined. I have my head in the clouds with my feet firmly planted on the ground. Because I have come to comfortable resolve with pain and sorrow, I am more open than over before. It’s not a case of being afraid of or taking a risk. It’s a case of even if the worst happens, I will still be fine, battered and bruised but with my roots still in moist rich soil ready to nourish my branches till the leaves grow back and I can sway and sing majestically in the breeze once more.

I get excited when I am at my lowest or have been levelled by something as that is the time when my growth is exponential. All my little soldiers kick in to rebuild the ravaged town stronger than ever. It’s a chance to look at things in a new light, a chance to throw an extra room on a couple of my houses.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own, if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, to be realistic, to remember the limitations of being human.

Joy would be nothing but an empty three letter word if it weren’t for my relationship with pain and sorrow.

For me, as far as my pendulum has been driven in the direction of darkness, so it has, once released, swung into the full and complete richness of light, joy and happiness. In the same way that summer helps us appreciate winter and the bitter cold of winter makes us embrace the warmth of summer days and nights. So the endless days spent in the room with a million corners has my extremities bursting with goodness. For as many corners as my room of darkness has, so has my room of light.

The only ball and chain I’ve seen that is impossible to break free from is the one we won’t let go of. Minds bars are stronger than anything man or nature has ever concocted. Therefore it is only us who set the limitations that being a human presents.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself, if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul, if you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.

Temporary is the gain from telling lies,

As sooner or later it’s only you you’ll despise.

Time is the almighty leveller,

The thing that reveals the colour of the reveller,

Who sits alone in his room at night,

Calling himself a fake.

Watching his reflection with hate,

Why would he lie,

If he loved his own life?

If I had the concreteness to disappoint another to be true to myself, how could my story not be true? Honesty being the key from start to finish. If I state my position from the start then the rest of the informed choice is theirs. The situations we find ourselves in day after day are a result of choices we’ve made and if someone has been clear about their angle from the beginning then there will be no shame in sticking to it!

I want to know if you can see beauty even when its not pretty, every day, and if you can source your own life from its presence.

It seems, as I think of all my answers to this proposition, that words are words and are used by the false in the same way as the true. Anything I could write, to me sounds trite, so I won’t.

What I will say is that my aim through some of my life’s most confusing and troubling times has been to surround myself in beauty. Beauty as seen through my eyes. Songs, places, sounds, the top of a hill on a rock, solitude, company that exudes an uplifting energy etc. I figure that if I surround myself with beautiful goodness, I’ve nowhere to go but up.

If I feel I deserve to be surrounded by good things then I feel worthy of good things. If I were to allow myself to be surrounded by negativity then that would be a direct reflection on my internal self health.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand on the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon "yes".

There is talk of failure, lakes and full moons. There are only smiles on my face, why? I can see myself standing on the edge of a lake in the face of a silver shining full moon after coming to a point along a path to any particular goal and reached my maximum potential but still not making it to the end. Looking back to the place I’d started and be filled with nothing but pride at the distance travelled. With a thought in the back of my mind that maybe later on I’ll be able to push that one a little further.

It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

This paints a thousand nights for me. I’m not going to expand on things that have happened and the things I’ve overcome in order to offer strength, however fragile, to those who relied on me for support, love and care. All I’ll say is I can honestly and from experience say that I have been a father since before I can remember and yes, in the face of all forms of adversity, the kids were fed and comforted to sleep.

It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you come to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.

Once again all sorts of claims can be thrown around that only time can prove. I do know that those who wear their armour on the outside to present strength do so to cover internal weakness. While those who present with their belly exposed have steel like substance.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you, from the inside, when all else falls away.

The things that sustain me are diversified and beautiful and when all else falls away is when the foundations I’ve been standing on are exposed. Along with the gorgeous hidden colours they’ve been buried with all this time. I'm spurred on to the following day by the eager anticipation of the suns rise, the things it will uncover and what will unfold beneath it's watchfull eye. What will be the nature of it's descent? Above the cover of cloud or in the crescendo of a spectacular orchestra of clear skies, clouds and ever changing shades of gold, pink and purple? The uncertainty that paints a nightmare for some, paints a masterpiece of opportunities for others. What will it be? I get to choose every morning I wake! Would I be silly enough to have it any other way?

My souls resilliance sustains me,

My quest for wisdom and knowlege keeps me alive.

My obsession with uncertainty keeps me hungry,

While my unfinished business gives me my edge.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

I’m in the last four months of a three year long relationship free period I set for myself so I could get to know me.

It has come with some of the most empty but also with some of the fullest moments I’ve experienced to date. I’ve learned to live with me, to know me and to love me, to recognise my triggers and symptoms. It has been a three year relationship with myself and now as it draws to a close I feel complete, fulfilled and satisfied. All at age 29!!!! I’ve got nowhere to go but straight up!

Do you know how much I’ve already done in my life that I never thought possible when I was standing as a lone twelve year old looking out at the world with nothing and nothing to loose. By "with nothing" I mean with nothing! No pre-learned morals I could depend on, little education, no social skills suited to the real world, nothing but me!

A choice presented itself, I can use my situation as an excuse to go nowhere, but that would only harm me. It doesn’t get back, affect or impact on anyone, or anything but me.

Or,

I can see how far a kid like me can go, nothing to loose, everything to gain.

Let’s have a crack!

Joey