Sometimes--some days--the hits keep coming. Call it a streak of shitty luck--or unfortunate circumstances. Whatever it is, it's just part of life. Shit happens. It's important to laugh about it--or at it--if you can.

But failing that? You square your shoulders, raise your chin, and try to get by on strength, dignity, and whatever grace you can manage. It's part parlor trick, part pride, part stubbornness, and part necessity. What choice do you have? What choice do I have? We don't control the world, life, or the things in it. We can control ourselves, most of the time. Emotions can, and often do, get the best of us.

Low moments happen. We're often flawed and less than strong. We break, or crack. We cry, love, or lust when we "shouldn't." We act and react out of some half-forgotten--or half realized--instinct. At the heart of everything we've ever done or thought, there is hope.

Hope that things will get better. Hope that it will all work out. Hope that love isn't offered in vain, or that some Thing (whatever it is) goes right.

I smile when I shouldn't. I hold to that in my darker moments. I've always been a good actress in that respect, out of habit. There are very few people who get to see me when the chips are down--mascara running, or no makeup at all (both literally and figuratively).

Sometimes, I detail my flaws easily, especially here. There's something about the absence of a face-to-face reaction that makes a person bold. It's part of the reason we blog. To expose things without an immediate risk. Mostly, we write in order to connect and share. We want to leave our mark, somewhere. We want to feel understood, gotten.

I've veered off-topic, I know. Let me remedy that.

As stupidly Pollyanna as this might sound: nothing is impossible. Miracles do happen. People forgive. People step up. People see us for who we are--ugly faults and all--but love us anyway. This is, by no means, a perfect life. But even a dying flower was once beautiful. Even a small smile is still a smile. And the memory of love can still hold enough hope to sustain a troubled heart.

Love is never wasted. Hope is never a mistake. And when the world tries to knock you down, over and over again, remember this: you are stronger than you think. You're braver, too. Shit happens to all of us. Uncontrollable, unpredictable chaos. Even if it seems like you can't handle it, you can.

And when all else fails, go for the chocolate and tequila. I'll bring the limes.

Live life to the fullest. Carpe diem. Love like it’s never going to hurt. Dance like nobody’s watching. Risk.

We are all, mostly, made of Talk—not action. Oh, we don’t mean to be, but we are. We put things off—things like saying “I love you” or writing a novel or going on vacation. It isn’t easy or convenient. It might require some kind of personal risk. It might require hard work. It might require some kind of effort.

And let’s face it, when someone tell us to “seize the day,” we are afraid. We count too much on some fictional tomorrow. Honestly, if we knew there was no tomorrow, we’d do one of two things: everything we always wanted or nothing.

Yes, some would do nothing. Some people would be so consumed by angst and fear that they’d curl up and waste the last moments.

What would you do, if you knew your days were limited? Would you confess your love for someone, burn all your journals, skydive, eat only pastries for an entire day, spend time with loved ones, spend time alone, sing in public, write that book you’ve been talking about writing (you cannot write a book by thinking about writing it—unless you are telekinetic), or have a copious amount of sex? (Come on, you knew you were thinking that.)

The truth is that we often hold too much back for various reasons. I do. You do. Hell, your dentist does. (Floss, people!) We talk too much about the things we’re going to do. We live small, restricted lives—because sometimes, it’s easier to function within a box than it is to venture out into the great unknown. It’s a matter of cowardice vs. courage, I suppose.

We always think that tomorrow is a given, that the people we love will always be there, that we’ll have more time to say “I love you.” We put off writing that book, painting that painting, scaling some mountain, or entering that photo contest. We’re scared, and sometimes, that fear wins. It shouldn’t, but it does.

We often live life in extremes. Saving too much or spending too much. Loving too much or not loving at all. Never risking ourselves, or continually throwing ourselves under those proverbial train tracks.

What would you do or say? What would you confess? What would you stop holding back? You don’t have to share that, if you don’t want to, but think about it. Would you fly across the world to kiss that one you love? Would you submit poetry to a contest? Would you breakup with your idiot significant other, because life’s too short to be chained to a monster? (Harpy or…there’s no male equivalent for that, is there?)

I think we need to stop talking so damn much and start doing. At the very least, we’ll come away with great stories to tell. And, possibly, a few tattoos.

This morning, several things have occurred to me. One is that I am useless before coffee, which makes making coffee rather perilous. I have wasted more coffee grounds than I care to think about. Pity. A second thing is far less obtuse, and that is: you cannot save me. But it is much easier to focus on you than it is to focus on…everything else.

You are my excuse. You are my flaw. You are one damned thing that keeps me awake at night—while I’m busy trying not to think about the Pile of Thoughts underneath my pillow. Trust me when I say that you never want to look under there. Avoidance is never quite as effective as one would like it to be. But I digress.

You are not something I can control, but you are likely to change—and I am apt to understand you. There is so much in my life that I cannot. Things that feel very Alice, crossed with the Twilight Zone, in one of Tim Burton’s most vivid, drug-filled nightmares. (I don’t actually know that Tim Burton does drugs, but it would stand to reason. Or, perhaps, he’s a bit left of the middle on an ordinary day. It doesn’t matter. Go with it.) So, I look to you. I ask questions that have no current answer, and I am okay with that—because I know that they could be answered. There’s something reassuring about that: the very prospect of enlightenment.

In reality, I don’t want to be “saved” in the damsel-in-dress, pop culture phenomenon way. What’s that saying, about walking beside a person? I want that. I want a lot of things. I could rattle off a few obscene ones, but I won’t. I simply refuse to waste all of my good material at the moment. I would, very much, like to lean on you. I would like to dissect you (figuratively, thank you. I’ve outgrown my college biology classes). But mostly, I just want to forget. If pharmaceutical companies were wise, they’d make a pill for that. Or perhaps they already do. I seem to remember reading something like that, somewhere.

At the end of the day, there is no cure for what ails most of us. Literally and figuratively. These moments progress, and we are the walking dead. We are not what we are, even when we are looking in the mirror. Love is not love, and yet—love is all there is. I wish you could understand that, and me, and everything I’ve been trying vainly to tell you. I don’t expect forgiveness, mercy, or life to get any easier.

But I know that it’s better with you in it. And it’s more fun if you take your clothes off. I believe Marvell said it best:

Let us roll all our strength, and all
Our sweetness, up into one ball;
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Thorough the iron gates of life.
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.

I need you. Right now. In a way I can't explain. It's partly that tendency towards sex to affirm life. It's partly an odd desperation. It's mostly a desire to forget--to forget everything that's happening. All the things I can't stop, prevent, or cure. I want to feel something...something other than everything else.

I want to strip away my clothes and everybody else's secrets. I want to peel away each difficult moment, leaving skin to skin, in a rush of things potentially forbidden. I want to forget the consequences of the way you'd tread across my body. Back up against the wall, caution of the floor, and everything else tossed out the room. I want to find a little bit of solace in you--in its rawest form.

I want to chase away the ghosts and dance a little dangerous. I want to prove things that can't be articulated. And, if I'm being honest, I want to capture you for the briefest moment. I want to break every rule I ever mentioned, considered, or let lie.

These are not ordinary times. These are days made of shadow, broken sentences, and tight smiles. So much is unexplained and damning. Annihilating, even. Peace of mind is a foolish afterthought. A luxury I can't claim.

So, yes, I need you. I want you. And I don't say a word. How could I? How can I? There's just too much silence for me to make a sound.

I wish you understood that. I wish you could see the bigger picture. Damn it all, I wish you were here, right now. Why? I can't quite say. But there it is. And here I am.

If only you knew.

I want to know what it's like, for you, on mornings like this. When the world is impossibly quiet, but there is no truth in it. Everything is still and promising, but it only offers a strange, tempting chill. A what-if that's impossible to discern.

I want to understand how it feels to laugh without a reason, leaving only echoes behind. I need to walk where I've always trespassed, instead of sneaking around the edges. I've lived in the shadows, now and then. But they do not live in me. Do you understand that? Can you? I hardly know, today.

This is an understatement of life: the fact that we live to know. We crave the dark and all its honest pleasure. We seek the light and all its offered promises. But somewhere in between, on mornings like this, there is something profound that rises.

Caring for someone is never a choice. Loving them isn't, either. There are moments, though, that define those feelings, and they are created by our decisions. How we act, react, risk, or fail to risk. These things are a simple test for love. The catch is that there is no right or wrong answer. There's no judgment (though some would make it), or condemnation. There's no rubric or perfect measure.

But yes, there are things that test love. There are events and moments that offer it up, display it, celebrate, or destroy it. I did not create it--the love or the circumstance. Neither did you. But we contend with it in the best way we know how.

I want to know what it's like to feel what you feel--to revel in both the absence and presence of a thousand unruly emotions. I want to comprehend the things you struggle to hide. Yes, on mornings like this, I think of you. But that is no brilliant revelation. It's like all the mornings before it.

If that doesn't tell you where my heart lies, I don't know what will.

Where do you go when you're lonely? Where do you go when you're blue? Where do you go when you're lonely--I'll follow you. When the stars go blue. When the stars go blue.

Laughin' with your pretty mouth. Laughin' with your broken eyes. Laughin' with your lover's tongue and a lullaby. ~When the Stars Go Blue