At Some Point

At some point it feels like a trap, this life am living. There are days when I want to jump into the Nile, not for death but for the experience of jumping off something high into something dangerous and uncertain, like the days would have a twist to them that actually adds color. That is on those days, and those days have a way of staying long with me. But then I think of the people that would cry, the ones that would laugh, those that would never understand or even those that would not want to understand. Then I hold back in my tracks and re-evaluate, only I am not sure that I am doing so to their tune or the one I would love to call mine.

But what hurts the most is that when I am trying to live according to their way, they are not here to help. Life can be perfect, but the window for realizing that is so short that most of us miss it. When we put ourselves to the task of living we assign ourselves a great responsibility, one not only to ourselves but to all those that share in this experience called living.

I have seen how we are unkind to those that have even stepped off the line for a second, how we are quick to cut them out. I have seen how when we give love, or anything that only a heart can give, we give with many strings, expectations that are heavy and burdensome. When you think about it, after all these years of doing this, the animals may be better at doing it than we are.

Back to jumping off bridges; we all try to make meaning of our existence here, we try to add value to our breath and sense of direction and purpose. Some of us succeed and many still don’t. We are all custodians of our lives, and though many of us know that to be true, we neglect the fact that we are custodians of life, the life around us and the life within us. When we are in pain or hurting, we are and there is no shortcut to that, there is no putting that aside. If we all looked around, it would not be hard to find a soul trying to jump off the high place we have put them to the unknown, a world where they would perhaps find the freedom they quietly long for.

When you think about it all, we have all had our part in putting others to impossible places and when they sought for a change, we have all had our part in frowning at them, or at least projecting the frown as the likely outcome. We have all stood and watched as one of us has stumbled their way to doom and we stood both not knowing what to do and not wanting to know what to do. Society has no space for defectors, and a single defection can be the bars that hold one for a generation, a single moment of attempting to jump or actually jumping can be the poison that slowly kills a soul.

Living is not for the weak, and we have all experienced that. Our faces are scratched every day by the hands of those that love us, we are bruised daily by the advice that is meant to put us on the right track, each day the soils of our burying are added by the warm hearts that mean no harm. And even though we know the intentions to be pure, we do not understand why the thoughts flow in one direction away from us, and why the help is not built into the system as opposed to being added once the wounds have been incurred and are rotting.

After all this time, the animals are better at living than we are:

You see, we have learnt that nature has to balance and that after every giving there should be a receipt, we have learnt that when we wish well, its right and that when we know right, we should be heard. In the process we have silently eliminated the individuals, choice of not only how high the bridge should be and over what river it should be, by also over if they need the bridge or would prefer the water. In the system of living we only build the help that we think would be needed and that we have proved to both be needed and helpful in the moment but we have ignored the creation of help out of the life that exists.

At This Point
I am grateful. Even though my heart longs for things that I do not poses yet, I know that the best things in life are with us, love, Joy, hope and faith. But I also know that just because they are there, does not mean that they are to come out on their own. The interactions we make with other beings bring the best of us out. That said, I think I am in need of such an interaction. We should take a moment each day and thank God for the amazing strength that He gives us to live each day, because while we live in a totally wrong system, we make it to the next day with dreams, accomplishment, regrets, ambitions and even love. We are stronger than we have known ourselves to be. We could have chosen to say goodbye to this place called life, but have some fight left in us, and fractured or not, we face each day, with new mercies and grace.

The mistakes made in a single day can be many and for many of us, they are so many, in the summary of time we shall truly see that we were more than just fighters, or conquerors, we made our way through this jungle. Some ways were short but they were ways none the less. Instead of beating the defectors, let’s show them that even the river has a bottom and an end, not forgetting a start, lets pay tribute to our responsibility to help another soul find their way through here. If you see me bleeding, look closely at yourself, it may be your blood am passing out.