Ulysses

Thank you, Tennyson.

I feel less alone and uncommon in this world, and so with gratitude I send my spirit up to you in the heavens tonight while my earthly body roils and toils endlessly. Time is nothing to me in this space, time has left me. I am suspended within the emotion and it is pain now, pain always, pain to be. I do not accept it like a martyr's cross; I weep with every step. This is not something I have chosen, nor has it possessed me like a demon spirit; it simply is. Everything that was beautiful about me still exists in the deep. I will always strive to bring it to light, but the weight of this experience is a shroud; it is heavy and suffocating, and I move slowly and deliberately. My whole life is running away from me and I am out of breath and can't catch it. I start wandering off the path in any direction that doesn't remind me of what hurts. I have lived with this for almost a month and it feels like the beginning of eternity. I can't go on like that. It will not get better. It is what is.

Yes, I am a fatalist in this way.

and for a moment's peace...around me now
~*~
If you're cold, I'll keep you warm.
If you're low, just hold on,
cos I will be your safety
oh don't leave home

and within me,
Tennyson's last stanza
~*~
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
~*~

So with this I try to emerge and seek a newer world. I will never leave this behind. It will always be me, but I can seek a guide, and a vision of the beauty that the world can be when I let myself see it.

and oh, not to yield. Oh, thank you, with everything that I am, that I know, that I feel; thank you.