I think it's time

I have not been in a relationship in a very long time, and some of the reasons for this are not the reasons I had originally thought they were. My last relationship ended in a very painful, very messy split. There was a long custody battle over our daughter and in the end, I lost. I haven't seen my daughter since then. I was hurt deeply and sunk into a long dark depression that has taken me many years to work through.

I ended up moving back in with my father renting the upstairs of his house so that I could afford to pay my child support and try to get back on my feet financially. Instead of putting myself back together, I spent the next couple years becoming more and more disconnected from the world around me. I considered suicide more than once and came close to doing the deed a couple times.

My daughter was everything to me and when she was taken from me it just ended my world. For a long time though I went to work and did the bare minimum to keep going, existing as apposed to living. It got to the point where I realized I needed some real help and I sought out counseling.

Jumping ahead a couple years and with the help of a couple good professionals, I was starting to feel more like a human being again and felt that maybe it was time to get out there and maybe meet someone again. I was working on becoming more socially active and less fearful of life.

At this point I had been able to put aside a little money and had plans to move back out on my own and get on with my life in some shape or another, when my father became ill. I ended up staying with him for another couple years to help out and towards the end take care of him. this left me little time to worry about myself and though my father did need me there, I had opportunity to go out if I wanted, but I used the excuse of my fathers illness to put my love life on hold again.

My father passed away a year and a half ago and the time since then has been very hectic and has involved 2 moves on my part. I ended up buying a mobile home the middle of last year and have gotten to where I actually feel like this is my home now. My fathers death has also been kind of a wake up call for me. It has made me take a good hard look at my life and I realize now that I have definitely not been living up to my potential.

I have finally been able to lay to rest some of the ghosts which have haunted me for the last decade, and find myself again. I still have issues that I am dealing with, but I have a handle on them and they don't control me anymore. I am able to feel something other than hurt or indifferent. I am no longer looking for excuses to put off enjoying my life.

I have a long way to go still, but I am well on my way and know where I am heading for the first time in almost 12 years. Once again I am walking among my fellow humans and it feels good. I feel good about myself most of the time, and though I still deal with depression, it has become much less of an issue. I'm putting together a good life for myself and I think it would be nice to share it with someone who can appreciate it. I don't know yet who that will be, but I think I will enjoy finding her. 

From the Stars to Eternity

There are many things which when I think about them, just make me stop in complete wonder. One of the most amazing to me is the thought that every thing, you, me, every one and every thing including our earth, are all made up of the remnants of dead and exploded stars.

I mean think about it, over billions of years, millions upon millions of stars forming, living out their celestial lives, then exploding in huge blasts of matter and energy. Then this matter slowly over time gathering into yet more stars with planets forming around them. More time and more energy and life begins to form. Over hundreds of millennium life evolves all the while more stars exploding and raining down their remains across vast stretches of space.

The fact that every particle of every person on earth was once a particle of some distant star just boggles my mind. Not just people though, every animal every plant every grain of sand, all the gold and gems that we count as valuable, all of it was once part of a star. It's very humbling and at the same time exhilarating beyond belief.

To know we are all made of star dust that may have come from the farthest corners of the universe makes me feel like in my own insignificant way, that I am a part of everything that is, has been and will be. It makes me so much more than just me. I am a hundred million super novas spread out over vast expanses of time. I am every person who ever lived before me. I am the sun, the moon and the planets. What's more, everyone else out there is also a combination of all these wonderful things.

When I compare these facts to the pitiful myths of religion, it makes me wonder how a mere god could ever compare to the reality of things. Why would I want to spend an eternity worshipping at the feet of some spoiled selfish arrogant supposed deity, when I can be dispersed over expanses of space and time to possibly become part of the particles that make up some future being in some other place? This to me is my mortality, this is where I would go when I die. Though my awareness may be left behind, my body, or at least the atoms which make up my body, will carry on.