As I sit here, bleary eyed, staring at my screen, the tears that well in my eyes and begin to cascade down my rough face are welcome relief to the burning deserts that are my eyes. I ask myself what my intentions are, but I know the answer already, and in spite of the difficult course I have set for myself, I cannot help but smile. I know this journey will be challenging and arduous, but I now have a confidence that I lacked before. I have proven to myself my courage and resolve, and I have found in myself a kernel of something that I can respect, that I can be proud of, that I can grow from, that relies on no one but myself. When Doubt forgets who I am, and attempts to sway my thoughts by whispering my history of shortcomings in my ear, I can now whisper back words which render her mute and cast her from my presence.
I have played this game before. I have bloodied myself in this arena and been defeated time and again. At one point I resigned myself to never again strive for the trophy which I now seek. I renounced what title I had left, pitiful and tarnished as it was, and in the end, though this game had not yet broken me, I broke myself. Then I remade myself. I pointed my life in the direction of danger, parallel with death, and I pushed as hard as I could. I left my life behind, abandoned the friends whom I was too shamed to face, and began again with nothing. I purged myself of the stagnancy, the leprosy that had consumed my soul for so long. One by one I found ways of realizing my true dreams and letting go of the illegitimate offspring of my false dreams. Day by day I became more of a man. Not the man I had wanted to be, but the man that I could be. I found the tools that I had lost in my youth. Honor. Courage. Integrity. Love. With these I forged my new life, unknowing that it would lead me back to here.
What I didn't realize when I decided to be my own hero, to be able to respect myself, was that I would have to face all of my past failures. Defeat is no longer an option. Not for the new me.
Although I have become a different person than the me who was broken before, I have not forgotten the arena in which I fell. I remember the rules of engagement, the nature of the contest, how to tell friend from foe. Now, as I step up once more, I have the knowledge gained from having seen this all from a distance. What were incongruous blobs of light and color are now the strokes of an impressionist painting. The random concepts I could not connect before, now form a machine which I understand intimately, and which I will use to assert my victory.
I am a contender. I am a gladiator. I am now a man who will never bow his head in defeat again.
2 comments:
matt - you are so wise beyond your years!
I am going to come back to this piece every time I feel low, defeated, or beaten down.
the last sentence in your fourth paragraph says it all: the obvious is sometimes painfully elusive...
...and it is only through distance we finally see!
i agree with h., you are wise beyond your years :)
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