Misery Moments

Every now and then they come without warning. I call them misery moments, those times when in a rush, feelings of hopelessness overwhelm past accomplishments and future goals with the dour and dire "nothing will ever change because life sucks." During those flashes of darkness, I question my existence and momentarily become wrapped in a spider web of agony struggling to free myself from hauntings related to my mom. She is gone, victim of a fatal car accident, years ago. I love her dearly and I'm still annoyed that she vanished in a twinkling without my being able to discuss soul pressing issues I had with her. (I mean it's going to be 40 years, for God's sake, already!)

I thought that I had achieved "inner peace" about her death and our at times, taffy pulling relationship, i.e. conflicts about my weight and her omnipresent shadow over my love relationships, etc. I realize that I have not. There is more work to do and that is why I slammed into a "misery moment," today, riding up in my apartment building elevator, Starbucks in hand.

The pain was acute, it was a moment of blazing self-immolation. But then, I reached out to my relationship in spirit with God. The searing ache faded. I realized I had not posted any sonnets to my other blog. So after I settled down with a cup of coffe, I wrote a sonnet today and will continue sonneting God's praises. This resolution challenges my journey forward into the labyrinth where eventually I will harness the minotaur and leap upon his neck twisting his head and horns until he bellows into an extraordinary creation, one that others will appreciate and love, and one that will inflame me. This said with fear and trembling.

This reverential strapping of misery moments into poems seems to work for me. More efficient than DRUGS. Less rocky and burdensome than a pet (The pet dies and then what?). You see, I've established a historical relationship with God; my faith, redoubled since childhood. The cost of such faith? Immeasurable. I relinquished my ego, my pride and the desires of my flesh and eyes (don't get crazy here...this is a term implying envy and carnality not sex).

My pride and ego? Still struggling with this; used to be worse. Regarding my lusting for luxuries? I live in a one bedroom apartment, leave a small carbon footprint and travel light compared with many others of my age group. Do I covet what others have? After being in the of presence others who only assign value based upon another's material acquisitionsHELL NO. Their materialism has not brought them health (I take no medication) inner contentment and peace. Material things have a way of inciting the appetite to exceed previous excesses. But the moment there is acquisition the urgent needs abate, sated momentarily, until the next lustful greed defiantly challenge. The moment the endorphin rush is gone, then? More shopping? How many times in a month can one shop until the bill comes and then it's, "What the hell happened?" Need I say more?

 I have counted the cost loss of Ego, pride and desire. In effect as the Spirit increased the emptiness and loss decreased. The payment was not mine, it was in the blood by Christ and I've reaped the rewards. When I was a kid, I yearned in my heart for God. One day, He came. Sounds easy? It was impossible and the shredding of my ego, pride and those other "lusts" were psychic hell or like having ones guts pulled and stretched out of the abdominal cavity extending it like a thirty food hose.

So such heart yearning is not to be done cavalierly. I can't tell you how or why, nor can I make any suggestions because I don't know how I got here stumbling and falling like someone with palsy. But I'm just glad to be able to wing past the dark side into the light if and when a misery moment crashes my sensibilities.

I do understand how anyone can yearn for a pill to stop unrelenting anguish. And if anguish becomes "the daily meal?" Give me a dozen pills; I don't want reality! The irony is we have so many "reality" shows on TV. Reality? You mean those folks are bumping up against reality? Ha, Ha, Ha,!

Back to taking pills for the pain. Much more concrete. Much more soothing. Much more deadly. But we are mortal and can pick our poison. Zoloft? Oxycodon? Valium? Prosaic? Or any of the other myriad anti -depressants, stimulants, etc. for what ails the human being/the human brain/human heart. We're just a network of bio-chemicaled carbon elements. But darn it, what is this transcendent power brokering our search for meaning which springs us to the race like gingerbread men and women?

Just trying to connect the dots, wipe out their blackness so just white (the union of all colors) is left. How about you?