remembering to give the time of day to the subtleties of the world around me is no small task .  life is full of struggles and worries and often i find myself too overwhelmed with those things to even consider branching out and noticing anything else. there are moments though. moments when the sunlight is able to shine through the seemingly endless layer of gray that blankets the upper reaches of my atmosphere and i am able to appreciate the beauty that exists all around me. these flashes of enlightenment are, generally, few and far between..but their arrival is always accompanied by the unwavering realization that, one day, everything will be ok.

one day, everything will be ok.

for those fleeting minutes, i haven’t a care in the world.
i’m just happy to be alive.

all too often, the urge to give up outweighs the urge to believe in optimism and the idea that things will, eventually, be okay.

what does it say about a person when nearly every choice they make in their lives with the complete intent to do nothing but better themselves and their situation backfires and has the complete opposite result?  is the person himself a failure or is it just a matter of him not having found that perfect storm of a life situation yet and he should keep his head up and press on? surely, the correct answer is the latter, but when one is knee deep in the everyday muck of life and his head is clouded with nothing but the after-effects of all the negatives he has endured, it becomes very very difficult to maintain a glass-is-half-full attitude towards his life and the world in general.

i remain standing in the dead center of one of my life’s most important crossroads, and every time i choose a direction and begin on my merry way, i subsequently always come to find that the road has been closed. why is this? what is it about me that brings these issues to the forefront, when countless other people, arguably many less deserving, are able to continue down their chosen roads without obstruction, detour, or regret?

life may never make sense to me.
that might be my biggest fear.

the rescue boats need to hurry. i can’t tread water much longer.
i don’t want to drown.
drowning is not an option.  i hope.

the questions continue to mount. the answers still refuse to come.

how is one able to change their life? when none of the choices seem to make sense, how does a person decide upon one? god wouldn’t put us in situations that we weren’t mentally and physically able to handle and dig out of..would he?

treading water. treading water. treading water.

all we want to do is swim. but in which direction? if the shore is nowhere in sight, what’s our motivation to keep going forward?

treading water. treading water. treading water.

i don’t want to drown.

when nothing goes the way you plan for it to, what does that say about you? are all your plans and choices and decisions flawed? where does the line of blame get drawn?
where does disappointment end and lack of expectation begin?
the hole feels deeper with each passing day. can we dig ourselves out?

how does a person find themselves? why are some people blessed with an uncanny ability to just know what they desire when they desire it while others cannot get out of the way of their own defeatist thoughts?
to quote a friend of mine, ‘life remains a strange and fragmented battle’. but while i know it doesn’t have to be as such, i do not know how to change.

who is benjamin miller? that’s a question i’ve still been unable to answer and it has been eating at me quite a bit lately. shouldn’t i know by now? sure, life has it’s mysteries, but i’m unsure if this should be one of them. i know the basics, but what really makes him tick? who is he? who are you? who am i?
the world will find out when he’s ready to share his story.
until then, we speculate.

What is the meaning of life? It’s an age old question to be sure, but has anyone who asked it ever figured out the answer? I’m starting to believe that life is less about the actual outcomes of the choices you make, but more about the journey you embark on once you decide to make those choices. What if I acted on whims and did the exact thing I wanted to do at the exact time I wanted to do it? Would I be a happier person? The cautious realist in me says no, but the dreamer in me wholeheartedly disagrees. It seems like a simple enough solution, doesn’t it? Follow your dreams. Follow your heart. Find Happiness. It’s a scenario that’s been played out countless times by countless people, all of whom I’m sure would absoultely swear by it. The thing is though, it isn’t that easy. Before you can follow your dreams and follow your heart..you first have to trust your dreams and trust your heart. I, sadly, have not yet found myself able to do either. Why is it so easy to be afraid?

if you could throw everything you had right now away and just try to start over someplace new, would you? all your relationships, friends, and most belongings would become nothing but a memory and you’d be left to just..try again. life gets really overwhelming sometimes and it’s so easy to drown in disappointments and failures and dwell over what could have been and what never was. i don’t know what the answers are in life, i dont know if i will ever find them…actually i’m starting to believe i won’t. my head, most of the time, is a broken record. i feel so incredibly unsatisfied with the paths i’ve chosen and the life i lead and it’s breaking me. god, i wish i knew how to feel ok.

sometimes i believe that the past is nothing more than a thinly veiled yet slightly distorted glimpse into the future. the mistakes made once are doomed to be made again. situations change, outcomes don’t. right?
the glass is half empty and i’m thirsty for more.

sometimes when the tides roll back out to sea, i fear that i will lose my footing and be unceremoniously swept away with them. the ground that once seemed so unyeilding beneath me now showing it’s true colors. i will have been fooled for a moment, but should have expected as much.

if i ever am swept out to the ocean and i find myself ebbing and flowing with the waves, feeling as insignificant as the seaweed floating beside me, and having no right to anticipate or assume survival, i will find solace in one solitary hope, one solitary belief.
rescue boats will come. rescue boats will come.
rescue boats WILL come.