Once Love, but now a weak friendship in a cage… "Goodbye, my free bird. Goodbye, my love."

Photo by Fabrizio Verrecchia on Unsplash

Ironically, I opened Unsplash after writing this to find a picture for this writing…. I opened to this picture staring at me. A picture I’d downloaded years ago that I loved so dearly for its beauty. And oddly… it fits. It fits this writing so perfectly… “Goodbye, my free bird. Goodbye, my love.”

I had so much hope… For us, for me.

Now I see you from a screen with our broken dreams only for me to feel.

I’ve tried to swallow my hurt, my sadness, my jealousy, my hope, my countless feelings including still love… But I can’t. I must feel them tonight. Now from this cage because this is all that can be….

But still, I have hope. And why?! Whyyy…

If only it could not be…

But, I now feel it deteriorating me.

And so, I wonder… Is it worth it?

From this cage… This screen. This so little of a being. For us, for me. For what may and what was.

This. This is not anything. It’s weak. It’s pitiful and sad.

For what was, was beautiful and open and free, but this…. This is now from a cage. A cage that I’m now keeping for us.

And should it be….. I think… I think… I think… I think….. Well, it’s….something…

What shall I do?… Let you go.

I did… I came back. And back and back and back. To this cage… For me, for us. I had hope. I had hope….I had hope. Time after Time, I’ve returned. To this cage, this screen. This pitiful cell of what is left.

Should I? I probably shouldn’t, yet I wonder…. Am I in the cage with you!?!

Maybe we both need life to kick us, and this cage to make us realize what once was or shall ever be for us or anyone…..shall not come to this.

Is it a lesson!?

Don’t give up on what is free, open, and beautiful… For if you do, you then chase it again and again even from this cage. But, the question is… Is it truly this anymore!? From this cage….. I think not.

It’s no longer anything from this screen, but images from this cage of what once was and hopes that aren’t worth it when one won’t see that you come back and back to this cage and you will not let me have one glimpse inside. Inside of you. Nor respect what was.

Keep you in this cage, you come back to.

It’s both of us. We do this. And we must stop.

Move on, my free bird. Move on.

For we danced, as free birds… And we shall move on, as free birds. The cage is open. Wide-open… Move on.

Move on, my love bird… My free, beautiful love. Move on. I set you free…..

Wait, is that…. me?!?!

Well, my love birds….be free. Let it be.

Move on. If it can’t be here in this cage, it must be out there. Free. Both of us.

For both of us must go. That’s how we came, this is how we go.

Free birds.

Change something for just one week, and see how you feel.

1 week. Do something new for 1 week. Stick to it, and don’t give up. It may be hard. Do it anyway. Have discipline for 1 week. See what happens.

Notice carefully each day how you feel and how you’re changing as you try this new thing. Does it add to your life or subtract? What other things are changing as you do this 1 new thing?

Is it causing 10 times the reactive positive change in your life? You may find it will. Sometimes if we do 1 thing differently, we can see an uplift in multiple areas of our lives if that new 1 thing is positive for us.

Remember for the weeks following what you felt and how it’s improved your life… Use this memory to fuel you forward to new horizons in your life.

My belief in the purpose of work.

Photo by Bethany Legg on Unsplash

It’s been a long time since I’ve sat down to write. And as I write this… I feel so many emotions. I could nearly shed tears.

It’s been a really, really, really rough time for me for the past year and even more so the past 4 months and then really hitting a wall for the past month. I haven’t felt an ounce of inspiration and care to write for a few months now.

I lost my job earlier last month and I kinda thought it would happen, but I kept hoping and believing it wouldn’t so I didn’t put in the work to prepare myself a plan. With this huge fork in the road, my life stopped for a while. I didn’t know what to do with myself besides obsess over jobs and text and call people in my life excessively over my overthinking and worrying. It definitely made me focused though… focused to find a job. That’s about all though. My care for anything else slipped. I know what it’s like again to feel in a poverty state (even though yes, I have money and I’m not in poverty; it’s still a similar experience to the state of emergency and urgency that people in poverty often feel). At first, it was sorta like vacation… then the 3rd week of unemployment hit and I’d had enough. I’ve found out through this that will officially NEVER retire. I’ll always work.

Work for me adds structure, purpose, ability to help others, it’s also a piece of my social life that I never knew held such a huge piece to me feeling at home, and it’s also a source of connection. It makes my life a whole lot more meaningful.

I had been used to working at an already established place of work, and I do think this allowed me to be in a baby blanket if you will. Because there are people around, a structure created already, rules, and it was just easy for me to take those things for granted and I’ve even rebelled against them in my past at times. However, I realize now that those things helped me to feel secure, safe, and connected. Unfortunately, I hadn’t built the skills and platform that an organized, established workplace gives me for my own life absent of this workplace. I lacked the proper structure in my life. I’ve done stuff so freely, unbound, and so wrapped around my work that without work, I didn’t know how to be full and feel in place and put together. It’s sad, really. I never knew.

I can’t say I’m a mess; I’m not. I am being overly harsh (as that’s just how I am…. and well, that makes me a better human in the process too I think even though I need to learn where to stop and balance my self-criticism). I have learned through my dark times recently my belief in the purpose of work for my life. I want to serve, I want to work, I want to feel connected, and have structure. I’ve learned that I must create these things for myself though and that I shouldn’t just rely on my work to hold me together like glue. I’ve got to do a better job of building my own foundation absent of work. Work will always be in my life though, until the day I die.

I believe the purpose of work in my life is to help and serve others, create and find meaning and connection, and have something to get completely lost in doing that sets me into a flow state giving me the much-needed reprieve from the world and into my greatest efficiency and craft.

Without work, whether in an organized, established workplace or not, my life isn’t entirely complete. Work can be many things… it can be things we don’t normally think of as work too. It’s simply whatever I'm doing that allows me to 1) help and serve others 2) create and find meaning and connection and 3) gets me into a flow state to produce my greatest efficiency and craft. As you can see… these are very general beliefs of my purpose of work in life, but they’re meaningful to me and that’s what matters. It makes even when I can’t formally work one day when I get old still meaningful work. Helping to care for my future grandkids when/if I get the privilege, for example, this could be my work. My work is what I make it and think of it in my mindset and through how I do and be.

I’m back, everyone! Back to work! 🙂

P.S. — I have found a full-time job again recently. My darkness is starting to disappear. I’m happy and can think of various things (like normal) again. 🙂

You Can!

Photo by Randy Tarampi on Unsplash

You can.

You can be.

You can be what you want to be.

You are more than you have been thinking of yourself.

You’re capable.

You’re driven.

You’re worthy.

You WILL do a good job.

You are enough.

You need NOT worry or fear… Just BE and DO.

Photo by Clayton Cardinalli on Unsplash

Kensington Metropark, Night of the Michigan Philharmonic 2019

Lay down.

Dip your toes in the sand and water.

Walk freely… So unbound by life’s busyness… Let it go.

Walk slowly.

See beauty. Listen & watch… Feel.

Let the headaches of yesterday be let go… Renew

See the simpleness, uniqueness of a weed… Left swaying in the gentle breeze.

The stillness. The liveliness.

Weeds, flowers, green grass, and rippled waters.

Peace, quiet…. Life. No judgment.

All to be there is there.

The bee, he seems so content. The fly as well.

The dogs all happy wagging their tails.

And people doing, being… There.