the shrinking heart

sometimes, i get this feeling that my heart used to be really big...not just big but..huge! i feel this because i sometimes feel this gaping hole where love used to reside, like i'm becoming more of a shadow and less like light. i don't think it's hindsight bias, i think i used to generally love everything and everyone. it was just easy for me to and i couldn't, wouldn't have it any other way. jesus, to me, was the coolest guy. not just a fantasy, not just a myth, not just a historical figure or a far-fetched legend. fully divine but also FULLY HUMAN, he was my role model, the coolest hippie around who didn't just sing songs about making love not war while smoking weed in a corner nor having long discussions with family and friends bitching about everyone and everything while doing nothing about it. he went out there and loved the rejected and the ostracized, the freaks and the goons, the sinners and the forgotten, consoling where consolation was needed and putting right things that were wrong. every moment was a mission to love, to give and to grow. suffering was a means for love and faith to be purified and life itself was a prayer and communion with the divine.

that was what and who i aspired to be. life was beautiful no matter what and i was always thankful for what little or alot i had. black holes would come and go but i got out pretty fast, forgave pretty quick, loved like there was no tomorrow and was driven to live every moment like it might have been my last. i carried my hopes, my dreams, my resilience where i went, staying true to them. people said i was naive and used whatever other adult-words they could find to describe the ignorance and persistence of youth but i was undaunted, steadfast and resolved to live the life i dreamed.

then, bit by bit, this big heart, this bright mind, started shrinking like a helium balloon that had flown too high and too long. i don't know how it started or why but one day, i knew these had grown awfully small when i realised that i didn't care whether i lived or died anymore, whether i hurt myself and others or not. i decided others could live the "jesus dream" because i was too weak, too broken and too unworthy to do so anymore. yes, instead of the light, i was quickly becoming the shadow, sucked into the darkness and hollowness of my own existence. could i blame anybody? it didn't matter whether i could or not, i started lashing out at the world who didn't get me, didn't allow me to breathe. i lashed out at god many times, asking him why i was still here, night after night as i lay my head on my pillow, eyes wide open in the dark, anxious about how i would ever get through another night like this. i "recommended" to god the neatest, most hassle-free ways to cease my existence in this world so that i could just disappear and be gotten over with "just as i deserved". suicide was out of the question and will NEVER be an option so you could say i was just, waiting.

i broke down many times, losing control of my emotions and impulses, easily triggered by attacks which i perceived, were to my self-worth. i felt really alone, not being understood by the people whom i really wish would understand instead of judging me so quickly. i hurt myself and others immensely. i felt i was such a "gone-case" that...so what? so what about world hunger or marginalisation or poverty? i couldn't even help myself. that's how absorbed i became, how small and shrunken this existence spiralled towards being.

what's happening? why? i can't really say. i type in past tense above but in reality, it's an ongoing battle i face. maybe i'm crazy for feeling those things, maybe i'm crazy for splashing these feelings across this page...but don't tell me i'm the only one. i know that there are many out there who have ("had" is merely an illusion) so much to give and who yearn to live and love big but now, only mourn for the death of their hearts. life for them, for us, sometimes is this big black question mark which sucks you in deeper and the more you struggle, the more you sink, like quick sand.

then there are people like lydia gouardo who are what they are and say what they say and totally blow my mind, removing the "cataracts" from my eyes and giving me a good shake-up , like being thrown into a pool of icy water first thing in the morning. my heart blooms again in these moments and becomes filled with hope and dreams once more. and the cycle repeats, wilting heart, blossoming heart, wilting heart, blossoming heart, only with greater intensity each time.

this video below speaks volumes and says very concisely and strikingly what all these paragraphs are trying to decode about the state of my heart. the important thing is, i'm still alive. and while i'm alive, i still have a shot. you do, too!

(p.s. stop the music at the right-hand side before playing the video, unless you want to create some kinda funky remix version of either song)