It's when you've finally let go. When you've decided to say ok, that it all comes crashing down. The background music sounds like Lightsick by Zoal Jesus - anxious and sad. The kind of questioning music you search for when your heart has finished roping the string around your finger. Your chest is heavy; the pressure overbearing. Life has decided to come streaming into your life, flashing LIVE FEED, THIS IS WHAT'S BEEN HAPPENING. You've taken a misstep and 5 months have happened behind your back.

yet here you stand. the lights are going out. and you're alone. having told your secret.

I haven't written anything in awhile. Lack of inspiration. Washed away by the concerns of life. Settled somewhere far out in the oceans of time by the tides of each day. But I'll see if I can help you.

Last time I wrote I told you that you remind me of a Hans Zimmer song. Moving through space on your own terms. Finding solitude in the lulls of the composer. Finding strength in the crescendo. But recently I've come to the realization that it's not just Hans. I find you in most instrumental pieces. Sometimes it's your smile. Sometimes it's your boy torn blue eyes. Most often it's a memory that I've managed to keep somewhere. But it's not the memories that remind make a song you; it's the mystery an instrumental piece holds deep at its core. Try it sometime. Listen. Somewhere in the chords of the piano or the strings of the violin you'll find a story. Your story is probably different from mine; the second time I listen, is often different than the first. I always come back for more though. Always finding something new, rejuvenating. Something inspiring.

They are you. Instrumental songs. Or maybe they are just my version of you. I keep coming back for more.

Yiruma has a song called The River Flows in You. I imagine it's the kind of song you'd hear while waiting for someone you care about to arrive. You'd lose yourself in the gradual exercise of putting piano notes into words. Making conversation with the song, as if perhaps it was in fact the loved one on his way down to meet you. Light like his steps as he cascades the grande stairs, the notes find their way so perfectly placed in time. Your heart races with the anticipation of seeing his face, brushing his hair out of his eye and gently kissing him on his cheek. And for whatever reason, in that moment you'd decide it was a perfect place for a dance. Whether a Waltz or just the simple guidance of one hand in another's.

My story today, however, I imagine Yiruma's song might be something that you'd use to rest your heart, perhaps settle your mind after a match. You'd find comfort in the seeming joy it exhales. Then maybe one day the person you care about would arrive and you'd dance your way out of your skin.

Hans Zimmer's composes music that asks you, then instinctively forces you to feel. Anything and everything. Singing melodies of comfort, coupled with tension, it pulls at your skin. Palpating from the tiniest nerve in your fingertips, out the heel of your foot. It begins gradually, a crescendo into a symphony of musical texture, until Hans silences the noise and leaves you there. Alone. With nothing but your own thoughts.

He sat in his room, moppy hair as dark as the night sky falling in his face, playing quietly with his red fire truck. He thought to himself how one day he'd like to be a hero like them. Strong. Willful. Fearless. He'd save families from burning houses. Kids from the tallest trees. Old people when they couldn't help themselves. And as he pushed his truck across the hardwood floor he could hear the sirens of his life going off. He could hear the future.

That's not to say his mother didn't think he wasn't quite the monster at times. Terrorizing his older brother, a true testament to siblings ability to get under one another's skin. An outgoing, unmanageable young boy at times, his mother wondered if he'd ever settle down. If the adorable devilish smile that made her heart melt would always exist.

And I'm sure as she watched her baby boy get older, a handsomer version of her young 5 year old, she hoped he'd keep his gentle nature wrapped somewhere in the darkness of adolescence and young twenty-somethings. I'd imagine she sat home often hoping you were safe as you tested your will and strength in many aspects of your life. Like every mother, she worried her son would push the lines a bit too far.

She would be happy to know that to this day your smile leaves nothing to the imagination. It's the hug you unwillingly give, wrapping tightly around the chest in a comforting suffocation. And the devil still rests somewhere in its crease. Forgetting not why you are so engaging, your charm warrants a certain persona. Whether that is your natural self, or someone you've created over the years I'm not sure. The man with striking features; misty blue eyes that go far deeper than anyone knows, you embody an aura of mystery that entices strangers and friends a like.

But when the clock strikes 2am and you are alone in your bedroom, does the innocence return? Do red fire trucks speed across your floor in hopes of saving someone? I imagine it's when you let the world dissolve away. Or maybe it's when you let someone special in. A time when the weight is lifted from your chest and you remember why you're here and how you got there. And as you lay in your bed and let the days events fold into your sheets, I'd think that somewhere the little boy returns. If not only for a flicker of a moment. He'd dream of saving lives. And realize he's probably already done so.

And it's when you've finally let go. When the pain has settled somewhere in your chest positioned so you can no longer feel it; somewhere it no longer gathers at the edges of your heart - tugging a little too tightly. Its then that they come back. On their own agenda. Without your permission. They are searching for reckless abandonment and you're stuck in the middle of it. They will run through you like a tempest in a small town. Whispering comfort from the nape of your neck to your pathetic sympathy. You'll long to be close, just for a minute. And when it's all over. You're be back where you started. Standing in the shadows you just emerged from.

So begin the mending. Find that pocket in your chest where you hid them before. Because as soon as you think you've finally closed it for good....they'll be back for more.

It was 4:45am and the neighborhood was quiet. A lone car was driving out, maybe to get to work - maybe just coming home - but its lights bounced from house to house as it continued on to its destination. The sky was clear as the stars shone bright, and I had to wonder what the rest of the world was doing. In some places it was already tomorrow; in others, people were still sleeping, only dreaming of what today would bring.

And as I sat awake in bed, I couldn't help but be thankful for my world. Aside from being tired in that moment, I was warm, comfortable and fortunate. So I don't have a job currently (or at least a full-time one) and slowly but surely my frustrations are rising. But I do have enough to maintain a comfortable lifestyle. I don't have to worry about where my next meal will be or if it will be. The roof over my head is solid and strong; the house I live in filled with loving family.

Sometimes I forget just how much I have, only to forget just how little others do.

Love like your first time

There seems to be nothing more pure than the first time you fall in love. It’s raw. Guided only by sentiment set into motion as a result of unadulterated passion and trust. You question nothing; having full faith in the person you are and the person you’re with. It almost becomes a tangled web of delusion as you walk fine lines you’d never otherwise test. Loving passionately becomes easy. It's palpable and graceful, dancing mystically between two bodies. Loving with all your heart seems only the right answer.

Yet, when we lose that person – whether it ends well or not – we lose a part of that tenacity. We question the small things. Do they hold you the way you like, eat the food you like, fill the shoes you expect them to fit, find pleasure in the things you do, etc. We find fault in the small things, hoping to somehow find love in the things we’re comfortable with.

But the question becomes, I think, are we meant to love like it’s our first time – every time? Or are we supposed to let what was, remain? There is something to be said for the enthusiasm that I imagine we all escape to in those first moments, however, maybe that’s where they are supposed to remain….with your first love.