It Was His

When I am emotional, I sometimes get carried away in my feelings. This last year has been filled with a loss of control as I have allowed myself to be taken over in the heat of a moment. It is not something I am always proud of, as anger is often that driving force, but it is never something I regret.

I have been thinking a lot about what it means to be alone, and to be alone with so many people around. It is possible, you know, to be alone when so many people love and care about you. I feel it sometimes; I feel it because to me, as it always has been, being alone means not having the support and acceptance of my family. See, deep down, like I think we all feel, I am just a kid that wants his mom and dad and siblings to be proud of him, to love every part of him, to support him no matter what and to be happy because he is happy.

But, it really is not the case.

I was taught "men are that they might have joy," but I think now that I misread what actually said, "men are that they might subscribe to 'joy'". Unless I forsake my brain I will never be able to subscribe to that "joy" and am therefore doomed either to misery on earth or misery after death (assuming that there is misery after death for me). Maybe I am a gambler, but I choose the option with the least likeliness of personal misery. I choose life.

My family might not know it, but they are the reason for my joy. I owe my life to my father, and without him would never have experienced any of the joy in my life. His teachings are the reason I had hope when I was younger, and the reason I always wanted to keep on living. He does not know this yet, but when I was hurting because of the names classmates and church mates would call me, or the things the bible or my leaders would call me his words gave me hope that it would indeed get better. In a society that intimidated and stifled by teaching that one man had all the answers, my father raised me to listen first, and foremost, to the spirit within me and to my personal revelations. He taught me that men are men, though they may have or claim authority from God, they are first men and are therefore weakened by their own bias. If I was not raised with the beliefs my father instilled in me, I am not sure I would have stuck around to be raised at all.

Once I was able to acknowledge that I am the ultimate authority over my life, things got easier. Just being was no longer a challenge. I no longer feel the deep sorrow, shame and darkness from before and life has developed more meaning.

I think my grandpa opened my eyes to the meaning of life. Life is living, he taught me that after he passed; life is to be happy, to "have joy." He lived every day, not like it was his last; he lived each day like it was his.