Ying & Yang, Push & Pull, Night & Day....Balance

Have you ever loved someone so much that you would be willing to fight for them with your last breath? I know that I love my Sohneya enough that I would fight anything to be with him, that no matter what I had to do to be with him I would do it. But maybe that's not the point. Maybe we're not supposed to be fighting to be with each other, but just let it go and simply be with each other. Doing something like this is incredibly scary, it takes a leap of faith, an enormous leap of faith. The kind you only take when you love someone as much as him and I love each other. Not only does it require faith in each other, but faith in God. Now you may be asking, what do I want you to take away with this? My lesson to you is this: trust in God. Let him be your guide. And no, I'm not telling you to become a mindless zombie, God did give you a brain, so use it. One of my favorite jokes is this: There's a guy drowning and a boat comes by but he tells them "No, no, it's okay, God will save me." So they leave him, and pretty soon another boat comes by, but again he tells them, "God will save me." So they too leave him, and then soon a helicopter comes by, and again he tells them to go along and that God will save him. The guy drowns. When he gets to heaven he asks God, "God, why didn't you save me?" God replies, "I sent you two boats and a freaking helicopter!!" The lesson in this joke and in what I am writing is to let God be your guide, listen to him, but at the same time use the head God gave you, think for yourself. It's a hard balance to find I know, I'm still trying to find it. But if you keep working towards it, you will eventually find it. The best advice I can give you is to make sure that you don't forget about him during the process. This isn't about putting God on hold while you find a balance with him, it's about letting him help you achieve that balance. Let God in and the process will begin, its part of having that powerful connection with him. And remember that there is no due date, no time constraint, no deadline, take your time with this, find it with your own speed. God will wait, and not only will he wait but he will aid you as he does so.

What Do the Roses Smell Like?

Everyone is in such a mad hurry. As children all we want is to grow up, as teens we await the magical age of 18 with fervor, and as adults we want everything as soon as we can get it. Always in such a hurry to grow up, to make money, to find love, to achieve goals. These things are all good, and it's good to have them, but what about the moment you are in at this very moment? We constantly seem to forget about the moment we are living in at this very second as we look to the future. A favorite quote of mine, one which I'm sure most of you have heard is "Remember yesterday, Look forward to tomorrow, Live in today." Don't forget about the future, but don't try to live in it. Live in the moment you have at this moment. Look towards a loved one and tell them how precious they are to you, look at the home you have right now and smile because at this moment it is yours to call home. Live in the present. Why is it that people are so anxious to get to tomorrow? And then once we finally get there we can't seem to help but want to be in the next day and so forth. I know that I can't help but want the next two years to go by with haste, because two years from now is when I will finally be able to be with my love. But instead of wanting so desperately to jump forward in time maybe I should stop and look around. I have him, he has me. Right now we should revel in that rather than wish for something that will never happen. Two years will be two years, no matter the speed we will it to go by. We should stop, look at each other, and smile because we know that the love we share is something few people get to experience. In two years we will be together, but right now this is all we have, and we should be happy for that. Live in the moment, don't take what you have right now for granted. Remember that each and every moment in life is a precious gift, something to be cherished and taken full advantage of. Look forward to the future, don't live in it. Live in this second, this moment, this day, this week, this month, this year. Live in the now.

Angel

Do you have that one song that can make tears form in your eyes the moment it comes on? That one song that can bring you to your knees because of everything it invokes. For me that song is Angel by Sarah McLachlan. This song has so many mixed memories for me, so many emotions are brought out by it that I can't help but let the tears fall. Happiness, pain, warmth, loneliness, they all come to the surface at once, almost overwhelming me. The song has a special place in my heart to say the least, it's one that I will listen to for the rest of my life I'm sure. I'm reminded of past heartaches, present and past fears, present love, present happiness, all these things, all these memories. How is it possible for one to feel sad and happy at the same time? A song like this is not meant to make you happy or joyful, and yet when I apply my own interpretation to it I can't help but feel happy. I've been through that kind of pain and sorrow, the kind where you can't feel anymore and you're tempted to make just one little cut, just to make sure you can still feel. I never did, but the thought was there. But then I found my angel, and in his arms was where I was able to let go of all of it. I found love, and through it I found peace.

Carry Me Into the Wind....

Love is something people have written about for centuries. It's mysterious, complicated, and probably the most worthy story of all to document. My and his story is one of loss, pain, grief, happiness, joy, but most of all it's a story of love. He has already told you the beginnings of it, using the name Sohneya. I am here to tell you the rest of it. We fell in love under unique circumstances, not unheard of at all, but also not the way I ever expected it to happen. We'd both been hurt in the past, at one point our hearts burned almost to the point of nonrecognition. It's somewhat of a miracle that we were both able to recover the way we did, to trust enough to allow each other in. But we both took a deep breath and plunged headfirst into the raging current. It took us away, but didn't separate us. Love is somewhat like a powerful river; diving in requires risk, and staying in requires even more risk, not to mention trust. But it is worth it, anything you have to go through to get what him and I have is worth it. That is one of the few things I can definitely assure you of. This is where I will pick up the last half of our story, to complete for you what has already been started.


Telling him I loved him was probably the scariest, riskiest thing I've ever had to do. It's also one of the most profound moments of my life, a moment that I will never forget. After we met we began emailing incessantly and talking every chance we could get. From the beginning we fit together, we clicked in a way I hadn't with anyone else before. At first we had adamantly decided that we were not going to date; neither of us wanted to get into another long distance relationship. We were just going to be friends...very close friends.  That plan, however, didn't go exactly as we had intended. We couldn't resist each other, it was that simple. We were totally and completely in love, and there was really no way we were going to be able to stay "just friends." The saying "I love you more than yesterday, but less than tomorrow" is a true one. Every day my heart grows for him, even though each day it seems that it can grow no more. So once again we both made leaps of faith and entered into the very thing we had been afraid of; a long distance relationship. I won't tell you that's it's been easy from there on out, because it hasn't been for either of us, not at all. Loving someone that much, being able to see them, hear their voice, but never being able to touch, hug, kiss. There are times when it's almost unbearable. We get to see each other occasionally, every few months, and those times are bliss, there's no other word to describe how we feel when we're near each other.  Now we have about two years before we can be together forever. Those two years are going to seem like an eternity. But when put next to the life we're going to be able to share together they seem like a minor obstacle, just something we have to get over to reach our ultimate goal. It's a minuscule trial to go through to get what we will have on the other side. If it's going to be even more than what we have now, I look forward to many years spent in happiness and love with my Sohneya.  

If You Like Shakespeare....

If you like or are in need of extra shakespeare help you should check out my other blog The Complete Works of Shakespeare. http://shakespearesimplified.blogspot.com/

Until Death Do Us Part...

Love. It's such a small four letter word, with so many connotations that it's an almost impossible concept to grasp. What is love really? Is it just chemicals going off in our brains, or is it something that comes from our soul? My own personal beliefs say that it's a little bit of both. Love starts with infatuation, which may just be hormones firing off in your brain, but true, actual, unconditional love stems from the soul. When two people meet there are the hormones and other sorts of chemicals involved (they do call it chemical attraction after all), but when two souls meet it's another matter. True, life-long love comes when two souls meet. When your soul meets another it's an experience that can't be accurately put into words. But I will try my best. Meeting someone else on a spirit to spirit level is like unveiling a whole new path that you never knew existed. Afterwards you feel uplifted and so filled with contentedness and joy that it feels like you may explode from it. When two souls meet and truly connect it's worth whatever you had to do to get there. That person will be a life-long friend, or at least someone you never forget. That's where life-long, "I want to grow old and die with you" love originates from; the meeting of souls. I'm not saying that you're going to fall madly in love with every person you meet this way, but when you do fall madly in love, when it's true, that's where it will originate. Love is a complicated thing, something that can't be defined in the amount of time I have to write this blog. It's always seemed odd to me that we only have one word for love in the English language. Eskimos have over 200 words for snow, and yet we have one for love. This almost seems like a wrong-doing since there are so many different forms of love. There's the love you have for your parents, for your siblings, for your extended family, your spouse, your children, your friends, and the list goes on. Why only have one word to describe so many different things? That would be like only having one word to describe the entirety of the human body. The very idea of such a thing seems foolish and silly. What is it about love that makes us want to examine and ponder it to extremes? The answer to this question is quite simple: love is one of the most, if not the most powerful emotion we will ever experience in our lifetimes. Love can make a sane person do rather insane things, it has the power to build you up and the power to tear you to ribbons. It's arguably one of the most powerful forces in our universe, and it's something that each and every one of us experience on a day-to-day basis. Don't take these daily experiences for granted, cherish each and every moment you have will the people you love.

Coincidence

Does anything really ever happen by coincidence? Before I began my search for God my answer to this may have been a rather firm yes. But looking back over the past year of my life I can only come to one conclusion: nothing is coincidence. It was this time last year when I met my best friend in a class the last year of my high school career. I'd almost not taken the class at all, and the chances of her sitting beside me after not having ever really talked to me the past three years of high school were slim to none. It was in that class that her and began our journey to the friendship we have now. There are so many factors that made up our meeting, so many things that could have gone differently and if they had would have changed everything. This brings up the age old question: do we have free will or is there a higher force, a fate if you will, controlling our every action. My personal belief is that both are true. Yes, I know you're probably tilting your head at me, giving the screen that "what have you been smoking?" look, but bear with me. I believe that we have free will, it's something that God granted us, something not even he can take away. But that doesn't mean he can't guide us, whisper words of love and advice in our ears. We have the freewill to decide not to follow his advice, to take another path, but when we follow that advice, whether we realize we're doing it or not, good things, incredible things, can happen. I know I probably sound like a preacher on a hot Sunday afternoon where the only thing everyone can think of is a nice tall glass of lemonade, but that's not the message I'm trying to convey to you. I'm not trying to tell you that you should start listening to voices in your head, I'm telling you to open yourself to him. It's harder said than done, I know from experience, but it's worth whatever you have to go through to get there. The first time you feel God's presence, truly feel his presence just overwhelm you is a truly amazing (to put it into mild terms) thing. Too many things have happened in my life for me to believe in coincidence. The circumstances under which I met the love of my life is another one of those "if just one thing had gone differently" experiences. If just one little detail had been different we never would have met each other, we never would have known the other existed. I can't imagine not having him in my life, I can't imagine never having met him, and I thank God everyday that he's mine, and yes I mean that literally. I do look towards the heavens and thank him for what we have. Coincidence is not something I believe in, I can't after everything I've experienced.

side note: I very much enjoy a good debate, so if anyone out there wants to I'm completely open for it on anything I discuss or any good topics you have.

Everywhere, Everything

I’m sure most people have heard the term “God is everywhere.” This phrase is usually applied in a Sunday school lesson where half of the kids are zoning out, daydreaming of swimming, ice cream, or, well, anything other than where they’re at. The sad thing about this is that this lesson is probably the truest one they will ever learn. I know that when I was a child Sunday school was not the thing I looked forward to most in my week, and church was something I dreaded. The concept of God wasn’t something I could fully comprehend at that point in my life. To me he was some aloof, untouchable, and even unreachable being, which may have or may not have existed. But there are many people who see God the same way. To many people he’s a religious figure, but according to their own spirituality he remains aloof, untouchable, and almost non-existent. God was something I believed in because it’s what I had been taught to believe, it’s what I thought I was supposed to do. If you have any questions relating to God, spirituality, or any of my posts please don’t hesitate to email me at peacelayi@gmail.com. To all of you who are reading this, don’t give up on finding Him, because even if you don’t think he is, he’s always there, he’s always been with you. All you have to do is open your heart to him. And if you have found him, reach out to those who haven’t.