Aphrodite

Today I struggle more than most. It’s an odd struggle for this day, for there is just something not right, although I will be damned if I know what it is. There is a lot on the proverbial plate, the job, the move, the lack of something, something so tough to pinpoint yet so easy to see.

Have I failed?

I am not sure, perhaps time will tell. The truth is that I am not sure I feel a failure here, but I know that what I what I feel is not success either. I know enough to see that I this is but one step in this journey. A small step indeed no matter how big it looks today, or a huge step indeed no matter how small it looks today. The truth is that I am not sure what to call this moment, or the moments that have got me here, or where I am heading. Have I failed? Have I done something so momentous that our lives will have found great significance because of this moment? All I know is that I do not know what to call what I have done or not done, and perhaps that lack of knowledge is what is creating the struggle itself. Perhaps it is not even really a struggle at all, but rather a lack of acceptance that things just are as they must be.

I walked outside tonight under the bright full moon and starlit sky. I am small, no doubt about it. Those stars above shone such light millions of years ago when greater men than me struggled greater struggles than I have seen. That moon has cast shadows on men with more to bear than my small fate. I feel alive in this presence, yet I feel lost in the weight of such small matters as those my mind must bear. I can see that perhaps what seems like failure today might mean the greatest events to those I love tomorrow. I stand in the glow of knowing that the greatest successes of today can mean the height of suffering tomorrow, and that life is like the changing phases of the moon I am standing under – one moment it is full, the other it is not, and there is nothing I can do to change it. I can see clearly that the weight I bear weighs little and that none of this matters, that time and space and love and lost mean little while meaning everything. Such matters of existence are like a waves on a beach, they only matter at the moment they break and are quickly replaced by yet another moment of undulation.

Who am I?

“Timeless question, ageless thought, all that’s endless, all for naught.” I guess the identity we have in ourselves is the temporary filler to our existence. I have never been able to answer such a question, nor have I been able to answer the sure follow up: “Does it matter?” I honestly don’t know who I am or what I am good at. Perhaps I can answer my insecurities at what I do well by understanding all those many things that I don’t do well. That list would be just too long to offer those who can barely muster up the will to read even the smallest thoughts I share. Yet I list them in my mind in such repetition as to believe that all those things I don’t do well are who I am. In this, is it fair to say that I am all that I do poorly regardless of that which I do well? And if, in fact, this is true, is it the lack of acceptance of who I am that is the cause for my suffering?

Is part of love, life, being and truth the acceptance of who I am regardless of what the judge says is the best or worst of me? Is accepting that which I do that makes you cry as important to happiness as accepting that which puts such a lovely smile on your face? Is accepting those moments of imperfection as important to happiness as embracing those moments of shear and utter perfection? It would seem so, for without the bad there can be no good, and without the pain they can be no contentment. That is not to say that one should be so content in acceptance as to not strive for the best of oneself, it is to say that in dwelling on such matters of imperfection that one cannot see or attest to the perfection. It is in the focusing and dwelling on the armless sight of Aphrodite that one cannot see the perfect beauty that is the rest of her. Perhaps when we focus on such beauty the lack of arms bothers us not at all.

So I am left to wonder, does who I am matter at all to me or to those who wish to know me? Do I submit to the judgments of others whose whims would be so meaningless as to change with the seasons? Or do I just accept that which is and bask in the beauty that this moment provides regardless of the fact there are no arms to embrace me, no lips to caress my own, or no longing in others for that which they see as who I am? It could simply be the armless masterpiece to which I find solace, for the rest of it is shear beauty.