End of My Day

Well, I'm tired and feeling a bit sentimental. Spent a few hours with good friends tonight and left feeling so loved and supported. It touched my heart. My friend's parting words were, "I bet you get a lot of your prayers answered..." Well that really made me think.

Whatever the technical differences between meditation and prayer, I don't care. I do both. I also don't care about the differences or similarities between various religious beliefs.

I kinda do a bit of everything, but mostly my own thing that I've basically done since I was a child. I feel no need to belong to any belief structure; be it Christian or Pagan or anything somewhere in-between or outside. I've never wanted to live in a box, nor have I ever wanted anyone to know what I believe or believe like me. My faith and spirituality is extremely personal and private. Trying to describe it verbally is fruitless. It is too precious to be exposed to analyzation or critique. It is how I live, and the only way I want to live. It makes my life bearable and magical ... and yes, I do get a lot of prayers answered and receive answers through meditation. I consider myself lucky in this regard.

That simple comment sent me on a journey to my script for Scriptwriting class which, of course, made me very sentimental. It is going to be hard to re-write some of the scenes in my script. Shoot, it's going to be difficult to even write the first draft of some of the scenes. I think I should start with some of the happier scenes first to bolster myself for the hard work of writing the sad scenes. This story is the basis of who I am. It will not be the entire "true" story. It will be dramatized in some areas because it is being written in a screenplay format which is different than a book, play, documentary, television series, or poem format. I am again reworking the only real story that I've wanted to write since it all happened. A lifetime has been spent thinking about this story, living this story, and telling this story. Yes, I am obsessed; but it is a beautiful obsession with many happy and poignant bits and pieces.

You see, all the sentimentality is based on the totality of the experience; the happy and the sad. It is a story of a prayer answered.

The other part is that I spend a good deal of time meditating on various issues while keeping myself calm and open to any answers that may present themselves. My latest meditation had to do with how my grandmothers survived their troubles with as much grace and love as they did. I was blessed to have most wonderful grandmothers who were very different, and yet, very similar - to me, at least. Meditating on my grandmothers led me to meditating about life in general for so many in the world. I found myself just wishing everyone love, strength, enlightenment, and joy. I just focused on that.

... and wouldn't you know, that very night I met someone who had the answers to my meditations. It's an AHA moment that is not lost on me. It has given me my next step in my spiritual evolution. That's me. Always trying to be a better person. I know where I am lacking and am now ready to take the next step. Irregardless of the events of my life and the loved ones who come and go, I stand firmly on my spiritual path filled with faith that I will continue to be a better person and make myself happier with each passing day, in spite of whatever pain I may or may not be experiencing ... and I will never be alone, nor do I have to travel on my journey alone.

I am truly lucky, and I only wish that everyone can find the same strength and peace that I have found during my more reflective moments. I still struggle and fail, but I was recently told to write down something I said in class, "I like failure. My life is built on failure." I am not a book that can be judged by the cover. My pages are filled with complexity, contradiction, failure, success, and so much more. To judge me based on the superficial circumstances of my life is to negate the totality of my being. This is true for every living soul.

Peace.