WE ALL WANT TO BE WINNERS

Let's face it: We all want to be winners.
Don't misunderstand me. I know some people don't want there to be any losers, only winners. That's why they want children to play games that always end in a "tie," no matter what the real score. That's the purpose behind so many self-esteem efforts at all points in life -- to make us all feel like a winner, at least about something. So what if your home life is a mess? Go to Las Vegas and come back a winner! So what if your career is in the tank, drive our car and you'll be a winner!
And on and so on.
The problem is, we're all losers. Even those we think have it made, they're losers. The rich and famous? Heck, they's lost more than we could ever realize -- their privacy, their souls, their pride. The poor? Well, they've lost their pride, their self-esteem, their hopes, their dreams. Those of us in the middle? We've lost our hearts, our hopes, our wants, our dreams, our lives.
And regardless of where you stand on the social, economic scale, you'll keep losing -- love, loved ones, time and, eventually, life itself. This is a game none of us ever wins. We all lose in the end.
Life, I think, is all about losing and learning how to accept and live with it. We all know people who, no matter how badly life is going, always find some good to hold on to. Even as they lose, they keep trying to see themselves as winners. Then there are those who win more than they lose and yet still focus solely on what they have lost.
Some, though, are realists, or at least as realistic as possible, and seem to see the balance in life, to measure carefully the wins and losses and keep a tally that keeps them grounded all while not quite giving up hope on that rare chance that maybe, just maybe, they might wind up winning more than they will lose.
I, unfortunately, do not count myself in their number. For I find that, day by damning day, life seems to offer more losses than wins and the wins are small and unimportant while the losses are significant and emotionally weighted.
The loss of loved ones.
The loss of the love of my life.
The loss of dreams.
The loss of hope.
It would be delusional at this point to think life can offer anything resembling winning. It would be insane to think there is any way to turn this around, that life will, suddenly, give back all that it has taken. It would be utter madness to think this tide will ever turn and float me back to a place where all of this can change.
It would be crazy to think I could win even a small victory in this battle against time and its losses.
We all want to be winners. But wanting simply is not enough.

LOVE ELUDES WORDS

Some things are beyond our reach.
But that doesn't keep us from trying.
That is why the painter keeps trying to recreate natural beauty. It is why the photographer continually tries to capture the moment. And it is why the writer always tries to describe the indescribable.
But where the painter and photographer are haunted by what we all can see, the writer so often is visited by the ghost of that which is beyond our senses, and yet often more real than anything we can see, touch or taste.
We keep trying to put love into words.
Poets and writers of prose both seek to find words to convey what is felt, what is in the heart, mind and soul. Even though they fail, time and again, they never stop trying. Along the way, they often can offer us -- with a word, a phrase, a stanza, a sentence -- a glimpse, a peek, a small part of what love really is. Even as they struggle to find the words to tell us how love feels, what love looks like, how love finds us and we find love, and where to encounter love, they still offer us bits and pieces of the jigsaw puzzle that is love. In doing so, they help us better know love when it finally does come into our lives.
Ironically, it is not until we have found love and it has found us that we recognize the truth in their words. For until love has paid you a visit, you can read what others have written and only hope even a part of what they write is true. Only once love abides with you, or even when it has been and gone, can you see the truth in the words penned by poets and truly understand the ideas offered in the best prose. Only then does what they write make sense to your mind and heart for both retain the distinct memory of what love is and can vouch for the veracity of the written word.
Even then, though, the heart and mind can see the shortcomings of the written word where love is concerned. Because no matter how hard any writer tries, and no matter how gifted and talented he or she is, they cannot find the words to capture love on paper. So know that whatever you read on paper or hear in the poetic words of a song, it still is far, far less than what love truly is.
Just as the beauty of a flower eludes the painter's brush and the depth of the moment escapes the photographer's shutter finger, so, too, does the entirety of love slip through the fingers of the writer.
Just as it so often slips through our fingers, leaving us only the words of poets and songwriters as salve for our aching, longing hearts.

IMAGINE A FUTURE ....

Imagining a future that includes love is easier than imagining a future without it.
Granted, neither may come true -- dreams more often die a lonely, forgotten death as life and time overtake them -- but imagining a personal future where love is a central figure and has a key role is much easier to embrace than one in which no love ever will even visit.
And yet for those of us who once had love and lost it, we must face that almost certain fate. Because, no matter how much we hope, no matter how much we try to dream, our hopes and dreams cannot conjure up a way for us to return, even for a brief moment or two, to that time when love was the center of our world, the focus of our lives.
You see, it is easier to dream of a future that includes love before love truly enters our lives, and so much harder to dream of a future of love when the love of our lives has walked away. Even though the odds of love entering our lives is the same as a lost love returning, it just is more difficult to imagine the one we love coming back than it is to imagine someone we love first entering our sad, sorry lives.
Blame it on experience. Is it not easier to imagine any wonderful thing happening to us -- winning the lottery, getting the perfect job, becoming someone famous -- before we ever even get close than it is to imagine after having gotten near to what we want, but having that elusive goal slip through our fingers?
After all, isn't the most human reaction to such things: Well, that was my best chance, and it got away. I'll never be that lucky again?
The poet was right when he said it was better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all, but it is also true that once you have loved and lost it is hard to believe love will ever return to your heart again. If for no other reason than the odds simply are stacked infinitely high against it. You rolled the romantic dice and lost.
Maybe this is because there is some truth to the belief that love visits us once and only once. And if, like me, you blow that chance, love is not going to make a return visit.
So why imagine that it would?

WE START OUT PROUD

We start out proud, noble even, with high principles, higher standards and specific goals to be .... well, to be the very best us we can be. With that in mind, we want to surround ourselves with the very best too -- the best life has to offer, not necessarily always in material goods but definitely in the people with whom we associate.
We look at those ahead of us on this path with disdain. We see only that they don't seem to care, that they don't seem to strive, that they settle for less than their best and less than the best of others. Why don't they care more about how they look? Who they hang out with? The women they date? The woman they married? The work they do?
We don't see the compromises they made, in good faith and with the best of intentions, having weighed the options and the realities of life. They were like us once, looking at the world and seeing a place they could make their mark, a lasting, indelible mark that others would see and strive for. They, too, wanted to be an example to everyone around them, to the rest of their world. But even the best of them, the shining stars and the achievers, have given up some of their ideals, some of their principles, parts of their very souls, to simply get where they are, no matter where that is.
If they look back they can see the steps they made along the way. There are no huge deviations, no massive swings from one direction to another and yet clearly they have wound up far short of the mark they set, the objective that was in their sights when they first began. But just like a bullet shot through a strong crosswind, they were aimed at one target and wound up hitting someplace else entirely.
Each of those deviations, each of those small turns, came from a decision that was made with the best of intentions and the wisdom of their time and age. They weighed the pluses and minuses and chose the route that seemed best. And yet each one slowly and measurably moved them farther and farther from their once-pure goal, when what they had hoped was that it would bring them closer.
And then one day, they looked back at where they started, remembered where they had wanted to be and realized that they had missed their mark, undershot their goal. They were not where or what they wanted to be. And they could see no way to get there.
That stark reality hits like a punch to the gut, taking the air right out of the lungs. It sucks the wind from your sails and drags you down further until it is hard to keep striving, keep pushing, keep your eyes on a prize you now know will never be yours, no matter what you do.
And before you even know it, you are just going through the motions, just coasting, just riding the tide. You no longer swim against the current, no longer fight the pull of the ocean, no longer try to keep from drowning under a wave of utter mediocrity and ignominy. Like a lemming, you just follow the crowd as you all march along to the edge of the cliff, heading to a certain and closing death.
They could break away, turn back, or simply just stop where they are. But that sometimes takes an effort that is hard to summon when life, disappointment, rejection, loss of love and a lifetime of defeats, big and small, have worn out the heart, the drive, the ambition. It is difficult to behave like an individual again after decades of conforming, fitting in, trying to be part of the team.
So instead of disdaining them, these forerunners and forefathers, consider their experience, their history as a cautionary tale. That, too, could happen to you. The only question is: Will you let it? Or will you be the one to swim against the tide, to forego the compromises and to always be true to yourself in all things?

A TRIP WORTH TAKING?

The sun rises.
The sun sets.
In daylight, in darkness, I simply try to plant one foot in front of the other, taking step after step, never certain  where I am heading. All I can do is hope that each step brings me closer to the one I love, rather than taking me that much farther from her door.
The only thing I know is that each step, each day, each moment takes me that much closer to my own end. Whether or not the path of love will intersect with that march toward death I do not know. All I can do is keep taking each step, one at a time, and trust that where I am heading, besides my own demise, will be some small junction with love and, more importantly, the woman I love with all my heart.
I can only hope she will be along my route because my path, like my destination, is hidden from my eyes. In fact, I cannot see but an inch in front of my face in any direction, so I cannot tell if I am walking toward her or away from her. I listen intently for her voice, smell the air for her scent, reach out in a circle around me trying to touch her, but I find nothing. Just emptiness.
From time to time something trips me, I stumble and fall. But I rise each time and, with increasing care, continue to take step after tremulous step, uncertain if I am stepping along a plain or about to walk off a cliff. I can't be sure if my next step will walk me right out of this world or take me right back into her life.
Then again, maybe I am just on one big treadmill, walking in place, getting nowhere.
Step after step.
Just hoping I am walking toward love and not away from it.
Because love is the only destination worth the trip.

IN PRAISE OF MOTHERS

For most of us, tomorrow is a significant day, either because you are a mother or because you had one. And at least there is one day each year set aside to honor these remarkable women.
Now, I am not claiming every mother is a Madonna, nor that every woman is a saint, just that women tend to be far more saintly and a lot closer to the Blessed Mother than I or any other man could ever get. And the woman who is a mother -- by that I mean a mother and not just the bearer of children -- is closer to sainthood than men can even dream.
What I am ashamed of, then, is how so many men treat the mother of their children. I am embarrassed by those who abuse -- physically, mentally, emotionally -- the woman who bore their offspring. And how men, whether they are fathers and husbands or not, look down on most, if not all women. How can this be? Did not each and every one of us come into this world through a woman? None of us is a clone. None of us hatched on a fence post. None of us just materialized in adult form. No, all of us were born of woman. And because a woman gave life to each and every one of us, we should take Sunday and honor not just the woman who bore us, raised us and gave us a life and a future, but all women. Because every woman has within her a mother. Each and every woman deserves the honor and respect we give to a mother because she could be someone's mother at some time in her life.
Women are, after all, God's greatest gift to the world and the most amazing blessing bestowed on men. We will never completely understand why God would grant to us unworthy and undeserving males this wonderful gift, we will never know why God's plans for this planet and this species includes these incredible females, but we men certainly should take tomorrow, and every day of the year, to thank Him for this blessing and to consider ourselves the luckiest men on the face of the earth that one of these heavenly and saintly creatures even bothers to be a part of our lives.
And if we are among the lucky few for whom a woman bears love, and for whom we love in return, then we should sing her praises to the rest of the world every day for the rest of our lives. Because there is no greater gift in life than to find the one whom you love and who loves you in return. I should know. I did find her. And then I lost her. And I now know how empty and meaningless life is without love and the one you love in your life.
So here's to all women, and especially to those who have borne and raised children. They have blessed us all.

THE SIGHT OF LOVE

When she looked at herself, she saw flaws, weaknesses, scars and imbalances.
When I looked at her, I saw one of God's most perfect creations.
I saw a complete woman.
Most of us -- save the egotists -- are our worst critics. We see all of the mistakes, errors, issues and scars in part because we have lived through and with them. We know ourselves pretty well, but our vantage point may well be a little too close.
Take a flower -- any flower. Viewed from a reasonable difference every flower is the picture of beauty, of an incredible creation. Get really close, however, and the small variances, the little differences, the minor blotches and irregularities stand out. And the perfect becomes flawed.
So she sees from her close proximity what I do not, because I am not in her skin; I am looking at her from outside her skin.
But there is another reason why she sees what I do not: I love her. And while love is not blind, it sees the beloved differently. Where she sees scars, baggage, flaws, irregularities, I simply see a complete woman. I do not think she has flaws, nor scars, nor baggage, nor irregularities. Instead, those things she considers her scars, flaws, baggage and irregularities are a vital part of who she is. And I love all that she is.
It is not that I do not see these "shortcomings" she thinks she has. I do see them. It is just that I don't see them as "shortcomings," but as important pieces of a complete woman, and a woman I love. So while she sometimes worries about her "baggage" and thinks no one, including me, should have to deal with her "baggage," all I see is someone I love, in her completeness and totality. And I happen to love all of her, as she was, as she is and as she will be.
This can be hard for any of us to accept -- that someone can love parts of us we do not love ourselves, that someone can love us for our "flaws" as much as for our more obvious strengths. But if we truly love someone, we love all of them, even the parts they do not love themselves.
And if they love us, then they feel the same.
That's just the way love is and the way love sees.