a meditation

"Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world."

to be awoken at such an hour, sometimes i feel is a tremendous blessing. just when life starts to sink into tepid routine, and sleep is the easier way out, an insomniac, respecting no clock whatsoever, comes a calling.

and you listen and you weep. sometimes you feel so woefully inadequate. sometimes you feel maybe this is your calling, that if you were just to do one thing in your life it would be this.

searching over shared regrets, you find yours. and for someone who knows me, i am a person who very much has regret in my vocabulary. many people live life without regrets, but that's just a fantastically absurd play on the meaning of the word regret. failure is regret, no matter how much you've learnt from it, or tried to make up for it. "you know there's no success like failure, well then, failure's no success at all".

and for someone who knows me, they also know why i am writing like this. it is hard to believe two people can feel the same, because it is so difficult to find someone so compatible with you. but if we are but experiences aggregated make man, then i guess experiences, emotions can easily transcend corporeal barriers and that is the spirit. "walking around in someone elses skin". that is the language we understand.

you have gone through so much, and i respect you for the profound bravery with which you face things. you indulge me with so many truths, "quid est veritas?" , that in your grief you probably illumine others. i am being elegiac, and as you ask of yourself "have i gone through much. have i lost an arm, a leg?" you have. i can say that i know what you feel. even a baby knows sadness, having gone through nothing particularly much at all. and there are specific instances where i have felt what you have felt, and so i try to empathise.

we are less than perfect. maybe we have established that long ago but we emphasize it again. you envy me because i have not burned my bridges, made enemies or anything, and you have. but i call to mind the penitential rite, where we ask mary to forgive us, "for what we have done, and what we have failed to do. and i ask blessed mary ever virgin, all the angels and saints, and you brothers and sisters, to pray for me to the Lord our God". and you begin to realise the extent of our failings, that we need so many people to pray for us. unbelievers all, looking for a home.

i have failed many and i am sorry. if i could think of one reason why i am so ineffective it is because sometimes i worry too much with guilt. less nowadays but you have just reminded me.

and i have suffered too. in this way. watching, commiserating. i hurt myself when i misread the careless actions of others. in this consolation i dwell. knowing i could die because i understand a little. hoping to change little by little so that some day i can bring up a good daughter, or son, or something. I know I am shifting already, but there is still plenty of growing to do.

when you asked me to pray for you i was aware of how little i have actually prayed for myself. i have never been religious, but as i understand where personal limits stop, and institutions start, i do begin to accept why for one we have to have common terms of reference and a coming together.

it is inadequate. we share in our yearning. i hope for the best for you, and it's not going to be a fairy tale, but the best of your life lies ahead, and i thank you for being there. i hope you never read this, because it is better that you know what you do know, the simple things, and though hopefully there will be fewer nights like this, we know life will always throw us lemons.

i have some words for myself but i don't remember them. and it was thus that i wished to end this night.

goodnight and tomorrow.