Life Isn't Always Sunshine and Rainbows

                           Every one of my scars both inside and out, tell my stories.
                 Of how though wounded, I fought, I conquered and I eventually healed.
                       My scars make up who I am, who I was and remind me of how life
                                      can deal some nasty blows, but eventually I will heal.
                                                                                                        ~JVM
Life isn't always sunshine, rainbows, puppies and smiles. Actually more often than not, it can be downright dirty, unjust and unfair. Life can deal blow after blow and isn't always satisfied with just knocking one down, it needs to kick you a few times to drive its point home.  One tries not to take it personally, shit happens after all, but there are times when it seems to keep slapping you in the face saying, nope no happy for you today, or tomorrow or maybe even next week. You look around you and wonder, what did I do, to bring this upon myself? When your life is in turmoil, you have to wonder, why?  Doctors call with bad news, your children are failing, your wife is unfaithful, you are out of work and bills are stacking up. You tell yourself that it can't possibly get any worse and your car dies on the way home. You fight with your best friend, your family is attacking you for reasons you will never be able to fathom.. You want to crawl into a corner and wave a white flag at life saying, seriously.. enough already.  You get so tired that all you want to do is hide, because what is the point of putting yourself out there, when apparently you have a giant kick me sign on your back that everyone can see. Sound familiar?  You wake up in the morning and instead of being optimistic, the day in and day out of reality has you wanting to pull the covers over your head. You have had it, no more. Why bother?  Reality makes for a cold bed fellow though, your thoughts will swarm around inside your brain, as you search for some internal off switch. You get up anyway, because really, what else do you do? You dress and you have your coffee and you go about your day. Eyes cast to the ground because you do not want anyone to see the defeat in your eyes, the sag in your shoulders, your ever fleeting will to live slowly fading. But you go, you get up, you put one foot in front of the other and you brace yourself for what the day will bring.  Day in and day out it is the same thing. Little grievances add up, til one day you look in the mirror and say, screw it. You lose your temper, your emotions fire up and you get your fight back. You look yourself in the eyes and say enough. Cause see, your reality is what you shape. You have to have the balls to make the changes you so desperately need. You have to stand up for yourself, even if you are standing alone. Rid the people in your life that have no place in your future, shed the negativity and realize, that life can deal you blow after blow, but you can fight back. You get knocked down again and again, you get back up. Cause that one time you don't, the one time you accept defeat and not pull yourself together is the time it would have worked. 

Above all in life you must be true to yourself, if there is something in your life you cannot put your heart and your soul into, then take yourself out of it completely. Accept everything about yourself, I mean everything. You are you and that is the beginning and the end.. no apologies and no regrets.  Life may knock you down, it may bloody your nose and break your heart. But those pieces can be picked up, and slowly put back together, again and again til you get it right.  Bernice Reagon had it right when she said "Life's challenges are not supposed to paralyze you, they're supposed to help you discover who you are."

Who you are, who you can be, who you will be is not defined in the moments when you are on top, it is defined in the moments that you are at your lowest point. When you are one step away from throwing in the towel, but don't. When the walls are closing in and you are faced with uncertainty, with fear and filled with exhaustion, you become paralyzed for a moment and then you discover your strength. 

The journey of your life each day, begins with a single step.