I was late for this, late for that, late for the love of my life.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. 

But, what happens when there is no right time?

Sometimes, life surrounds us with an incident, person, or circumstance and it just feels like it’s meant to be so we jump in it. We play with the fire, and while we do that we burn ourselves and turn into ashes. Many of times, we’re with situations or people, that are right, but timing isn’t. Time is like an unfaithful lover, it screws everyone up. The right love, the right job, maybe even the right escape always comes during the wrong time. The only  fathomable explanation that I find for it is that perhaps time is a means of testing. Because certainly if there is something right in the universe, after time meets it’s match, why wouldn’t it find a way to work itself out? Why wouldn’t it fall into place? The other explanation that I find is that perhaps time gives us the opportunity to find that somethings aren’t right even if they seem perfect within that moment. Maybe it gives us the chance to go over what we want, and who we are, and maybe in the end it is us who change whilst time remains.

I say, give opportunity to time, let it bring you new things, keep doors open, keep flourishing, and look back as well. Looking back only shows you how far you’ve come, so occasionally take a full speed drive and roll down the windows to look at the distance you’ve made it too, and maybe you’ll find that things that didn’t work out did within reason. Sometimes life tests good people, and it’ll happen that you are blameless but somehow you end up feeling weak, perhaps from loving too hard, and receiving too little, or because you’re unable to express the way you feel because you’re scared of everything you’d lose. Trust that everything in life is a gamble, from the next breath you’ll take to the love you’ll make, so sometimes instead of betting against situations, bet for situations, show your cards and take the risks, because our lives are better defined by the situations we risk for, opposed to the situations we are handed over. So folks, take the risk, let yourself speak your thoughts, sometimes we’re stuck in a dilemma of saying what we feel and fucking it up, or keeping it in us and fucking us up, I say, just fuck it completely. I know many of us wait until tomorrow, because we prefer tomorrow, we haven’t made any mistakes in tomorrow but do it today. Chase your stars, life is short. Don’t find it terrifying to be yourself, and to do what you want, don’t be afraid to lose to time, we either let time control us or we control time, its like choosing to wait for time to tell or beat time itself, and in a battle between you and time, pick you, beat time.

Let’s talk about love

The afternoon sun scorches the pavement on the terrace yet there is the bitter winter cold still threatening to bleed the layers of fictional society I’ve allowed to slither within me. I realize there is something lovely about listening to music that people don’t listen to. You get to hold it together, you get to make it a part of you opposed to breaking its pieces and sharing it with everyone.

I just read Norwegian Wood and it isn’t a book that I have painstakingly read through in a day. It is a beautiful novel that I have absorbed slowly. Rather than letting that lather go, I have chosen to preserve it and absorb it. I read it and then I stop, and then I read it again. The book seems so raw I am unable to combat the thought of it eventually ending. The book brought up a question I’ve read before if Romeo and Juliet is merely just a story about Shakespeare making fun of love why has it remained through time? And the answer is beautiful. It is because people choose to preserve young love.

Every so often you need to remember what it was like to experience young love. Young love is painful, it is raw, it is vulnerable, it is fragile, yet it is consuming, it is intoxicating. Young love is sex, it is hickeys, it is fucked up nights, it is the tears, it might be the one cut on a wrist, it could be a ride towards insanity, it is everything yet it is nothing at the same time. It is groundbreaking, and passionate and then at other moments it is nothing, and a half.

Young love is unanswered text messages, and the nail biting before sending a response. It is the reason you fall asleep yet it is the one thing keeping you up at 3 am. It causes you breathing heavily, yet it catches you by the breath. Love is everything, it is a feeling, it is a tummy ache, it is a heart rumble, but most importantly young love, it is the best of all because it holds promises. Broken promises, painful promises, distance, yet it has the rawness, the redness, the passion. 

Young love creates  Oscar Winning performances and stories, it creates books and songs that we spend all our time reading and listening to, because although our names aren’t Romeo and Juliet, Cinderella and Prince Charming, Chuck and Blair, or even William and Kate, we find something in all them that we can relate to, and as the great Pablo Neruda says, “If nothing can save you from death, may love at least save you  from life”. That is, and will always be my favorite verse in all of mankind, because it lights a flame in all of our hearts, and even if all light on the candles die, and all the roses dry up, we believe that love saves us, so maybe it will.

Bottoms Up!

“Bottoms Up!”, people say when they want you to finish a drink, get closer to intoxication, or avoid the bitter tasting liquid you are confronted with. My granddad often used that phrase whilst I was growing up to teach me to avoid the pungent taste of medicine and to take it in immediately. The “Bottoms Up!” ideology has worked for me my entire life because I have been taught to avoid the repulsing bitter taste of anything, perhaps this has compelled me to dive into situations often, but also to avoid pain. Today I sit here many years later asking myself “What makes one human?” and the answer that I give myself is that a vivid human experience is one that contains a whirlwind of emotions. Feelings that range from hate, love, happiness, sadness, and pain. Pain allows you to strengthen your human experience, and perhaps pain is the best way to appreciate joy. The contrasting of human feelings allow us to feel things with more passion, without pain, joy wouldn’t feel the same way, without hate, love wouldn’t feel as deep.

To be human, we often need to dive into situations, and perhaps, the younger me has experienced “Bottoms up!” as a way to avoid a foul tasting liquid, but as I grow the idea has much more meaning. To me, now it means jumping into situations without knowing what to expect. It’s a little like jumping into cold water and shutting your eyes, because you’re scared of what it’ll feel like to be cold, but ultimately you feel relaxed and at peace under water. Perhaps, to truly bottoms up, means to experience things you don’t know, and to allow yourself to feel whatever it is that you want. Perhaps it means taking risks, in love, shopping, or even a night out. It could mean, diving into something better. Just because you’re on unfamiliar water doesn’t mean the waves will encapsulate you. Sometimes you just need to buy the ticket, and take the ride, and accept that adventure can range from a midnight drive to McDonalds, to being in a hot air balloon watching the sunset. We see beauty in the way that we want to, and it is often within fast paced unplanned moments, and perhaps it comes in an unexpected manner, such as droplets of rain, or the chords of a song, or even a verse in poetry that you relate to. Your existence is reliant on how you choose to experience your moments, the validity of your existence depends on your interpretation of it, and every moment you seek out to experience is the internal desire of your soul.  Say yes to new experiences, plan less, feel more, and there it is, you’ll find yourself in the human experience.

The best experiences I have found come under conversations whilst watching the stars, or watching the city. It comes from sharing our human experience with someone else, or experiencing it within ourselves, perhaps with the assistance of art.

The human experience is a lot like a Nickelback song with the lyrics saying:

And as we lie beneath the stars
We realize how small we are
If they could love like you and me
Imagine what the world could be

This triggers the thought, that if people just watched the stars or the city for 10 minutes a day whilst listening to a heart stricken tune, the world could be a different place. Human’s would feel more of the human experience, and these fleeting moments would become something of permanence. My hope is that everyone dives into situations more, go for long drives in the night, listen more, observe more, listen to songs from the 90’s, read more, travel, but most importantly live life like it’s about to end.

Life is short y’all, so Bottoms up!