THE WORLD IN MY NOTEBOOK

Life has always been a stranger to me. My heart doesn’t have a connection to it anymore, and most likely never did. My soul has always placed a great distance between me and life. Life, and the world we’re living in, has always seemed a little upside down.

I see others embracing wrong as right. What is right, isn’t anymore, and we’re punished for it. I see evil seeping into the world, like a dark fog hanging over us. I see good men having to do really bad things for good to prevail. I see bad men pushing the limits of evil, brazenly. I see people like you and me who cannot see. Afraid of seeing. Afraid of acknowledging. Afraid of what it might mean if we do. We can’t tell the difference anymore. I see some who have lost the sparkle in their eyes, that has been replaced by puddles that seep out through the corner of their eyes.

I see a noisy world, drowning out traditions and culture. I see some surrendering to the darkness. They are tired. Outnumbered. Alone. Lost. Caught between right and wrong, evil and good. I see hopelessness. Sadness. Ugly. Hard hearts. Suffering. Persecutions. It is blatant. There is no longer a need to hide injustice.

When the world feels far too busy, and piercingly noisy, I lock myself away in a cocoon of silence, and spend my days writing about all the characters living in my head, fighting to be liberated from my mind. There, where I can create worlds of love, peace and beauty, while giving them a home where I can live with them for a while. There where I stumble on characters and incessantly fantasize about them, planning an unspoiled life and a fairy tale ending for them.

Above all, it allows me to escape reality, and fling myself into a world I can invent and crawl into whenever the world around me becomes too thunderous. It’s a world that makes sense when this one no longer does.

It is a portal to a world that allows me to live without a reality that has turned out to be my great sadness, even if only for a while. It is where I can find beauty again, waiting for me. It is where I can find peace and love that no longer waits for me in the real world.

In conjuring up stories in chapters of a book, there’s much in the lives of these characters that is contagious. Addictive. Unlike the real world that has become mostly bad. Mostly crippling. Mostly heartbreaking. Mostly leaving us desolated and alone. Addictions that break others. Crushes families. Shatters hearts. Discourages souls. Contagious habits that are mostly, our enemy. Our downfall. Shame. Regret. Our own demons. This world is one I’ve had to live in fear, sadness and cruelty. One where I’ve had to hide my fears and bypass my tears. One that crushes my soul and shatters my heart. A world that has let me down and stolen my joy.

But, in these pages there is good. There’s love. There’s kindness. There’s compassion. Empathy. A smile. Laughter. Joy. With my pen and my notebook, I can submerge myself into an alternate reality, ready to fly away, when the storms of this world is never far off. It’s the place I go to, when I dream with my eyes open, and my mouth closed. There where hearts are courageous, struggling to be brave, but still are. A broken spirit, clawing a way out with a smile and great determination. A great sadness hiding behind a sparkle, a gentle hug or a shoulder for someone else. A hand reaching out to a stranger, even though he himself desperately needs another’s hand to hold onto. An eye brimming with tears, yet still shimmering with hope.

In a world that leaves me feeling so far removed from where love lives, escaping to another by the mere strokes of a pen, brings me home again. There where love is, and there where I make sense again. It’s a place between here and there, where an ancient love comes home to me. Where all other worlds die, and this one lets me live again.

In the pages of my stories, make plans again. A world that does not let me forget to dream. There, where I can breathe again. A universe between chapters where love and kindness has never left and was never gone. There, where I can find peace when I no longer want to be awake in this world. A world I can conjure up and go to anytime I want to.