Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn’t it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up.

You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life…

You give them a piece of you. They didn’t ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn’t your own anymore.

Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like ‘maybe we should be just friends’ turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart.

It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It’s a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love.

Neil Gaiman

When I was younger I used to be terrified of taking risks or putting myself in vulnerable positions.

My Mom was the exact opposite and used to complain all the time about my lack of adventure.

To put it in her own words she would say; “Go out, have fun, get disappointed, get heart broken and live instead of sitting at home and feeling sorry for yourself. Look at me, I’m 42 and I have no regrets at all in my life. When you fail at it you just have another go at it.”

It’s Really weird how the older you get the more and more you become like your parents.

My mother died at 42 which now seems like a relatively young age yet she had the aura and wisdom of a Centurion. When I think of what an adult should be like, she’s the first person that comes to mind.

I guess every parent is a superhero in their children’s eyes yet her influence on other people was transcendental and to this day I encounter aspects of her in people she touched. There’s a whole network of people people who were brought together in her social Web and still interact to this day.

She was one of those once in a lifetime kind of people who had sipped life’s vinegar and found it, by and large, to be mostly whiskey, and good whiskey at that.

I’m glad some of her stardust rubbed onto me (just a little bit) . After all, I have her DNA so I’m the ultimate optimist.

I’m a very observant person of people’s emotions. My intuition is pristine and I guess that’s why I’m so good at playing cards and other mental games so as a kid I constantly observed how my Mother responded to situations.

I think she was painfully aware of this and never slipped in my presence. Only on my Grandfather’s funeral did I see her tearful and in dispair yet when I childishly exclaimed that Mum, I’ve never seen you cry, she regained her composure. Lord knows the battles she fought and kept to herself.

I could see through her and regardless of how rough a patch she was in, she never gave up. She would never allow herself to fall victim to self pity and I dial into those memories whenever I feel lost.

I’ve had a painful eight month run that would have derailed the hardest people. I’ve experienced every range of human disappointment over a short period yet somehow I managed to harvest my Mom’s spirit and will to keep my composure. I stayed vigilant and rode the hard times well.

Things turned for the worse from the instant I lost my free spirited dog Brandy to a mysterious illness. That was truly a bad omen because from then on every single thing that could go wrong went wrong. My life was truly the embodiment of Murphy’s Law.

I don’t know who I wronged up there but I’ve stayed in the game and gotten stronger for it.

Wherever people go when they die I hope they check in on us from time to time and hopefully I’ve made my Mom proud during this dark phase because I harvested all my strength from the strength she showed me during her tough times.

I feel I’m on the tail end of a horrible run of luck and the worst is behind me. I’m looking forward to the memories of right now and am ready to try all over again.

To experience all the pain and pleasure of this human experience and not lose heart is not easy.

I firmly believe that the best days are always ahead of you.

This started out as a simple quote from my favourite author Neil Gaiman who’s quite possibly the best at articulating human experience and evolved into introspection.

Anyways this is a reflection of my thoughts… Just what I was feeling at the time…