Empty Spaces
Dedicated to David Miller and my buddy Chris and his family. Keep the faith.
There has never been a person who's walked this planet who's come away unscathed. Standing next to the person in the checkout line at the grocery store and just listening will allow you the opportunity to hear some of the pain that living brings.
A co-worker spoke to me yesterday about a friend who held a golf memorial for his son - an 18-year-old who died when falling down the stairs at school. An unspeakable accident that left holes all over the county.
Try reading the paper every day. Scan the obits and see the ages of the people listed therein. For every person listed there were hundreds of people who's life was affected. In some cases, thousands who feel the void.
Everyone I've ever met is walking around with some sort of void in their heart. The heartbreak of life is all around. Until the great ball stops spinning, pain will be on the menu.
And what to do with those voids? How do we fill the empty spaces?
Believe it or not, there are choices to be made. We can eat ourselves into a coma, or do the same with drink.
We can fill the hole in our heart with anger, or eternal sadness, or hatred.
We can drink, gamble, carouse, engage in all sorts of sexual deviant behavior, shoot people down (literally and figuratively), gossip, threaten and cajole.
There are so many freedoms afforded us in this country, in this life, and in our own minds that we can fill those voids anyway that we see fit.
That's why you have religious services doing a brisk business as some of them prey on people who are searching for an answer.
That's why there are hundreds of robberies, break-ins and murders each night.
That's why people fill their evenings watching dogs fight or cocks fight, or drunk driving their asses home, not caring who or what they destroy along the way.
Millions of people are walking around like zombies every day. There's so much anger; so much hatred; so much jealousy and so few viable avenues to chase the demons away.
We all carry the seeds of self-destruction in our pockets and in many ways we spill those seeds, trying just to fill the empty space that is there just because we have lived.
I wish I could say that I always fill the voids with love - I try to - I really do. At the very least I am able to recognize that the empty spaces should be filled with things that allow me to feel better not worse.
Through 44 years of life, I've surrounded myself with people I love and people who love me, and the idea is to suffer through together, as a team, until the other side comes calling.
Yet that's an easy thing to forget. There's no doubt that you can sink into an abyss of sorts as you try and burn out the traces of pain.
Through my life I've shed my skin many times in an effort to become the man I need to become and to make it sync with my own heart.
And I will continue to do so because for some reason, today, I woke with the idea that the empty spaces have to be filled.
For me they must be filled with Faith in the Lord above, the love of my family, the love of my country, golf, Yankees, Bruce, pasta, the dogs, the way that the waves rush to the shore, the way the sun sets, the stars that fill the sky on a summer's night.
It ain't easy. Sometimes the choices we make to fill the empty spaces presents us with a whole new set of circumstances to self-destruct.
Day after day, moment after moment.
No one promised that it would be easy.
There has never been a person who's walked this planet who's come away unscathed. Standing next to the person in the checkout line at the grocery store and just listening will allow you the opportunity to hear some of the pain that living brings.
A co-worker spoke to me yesterday about a friend who held a golf memorial for his son - an 18-year-old who died when falling down the stairs at school. An unspeakable accident that left holes all over the county.
Try reading the paper every day. Scan the obits and see the ages of the people listed therein. For every person listed there were hundreds of people who's life was affected. In some cases, thousands who feel the void.
Everyone I've ever met is walking around with some sort of void in their heart. The heartbreak of life is all around. Until the great ball stops spinning, pain will be on the menu.
And what to do with those voids? How do we fill the empty spaces?
Believe it or not, there are choices to be made. We can eat ourselves into a coma, or do the same with drink.
We can fill the hole in our heart with anger, or eternal sadness, or hatred.
We can drink, gamble, carouse, engage in all sorts of sexual deviant behavior, shoot people down (literally and figuratively), gossip, threaten and cajole.
There are so many freedoms afforded us in this country, in this life, and in our own minds that we can fill those voids anyway that we see fit.
That's why you have religious services doing a brisk business as some of them prey on people who are searching for an answer.
That's why there are hundreds of robberies, break-ins and murders each night.
That's why people fill their evenings watching dogs fight or cocks fight, or drunk driving their asses home, not caring who or what they destroy along the way.
Millions of people are walking around like zombies every day. There's so much anger; so much hatred; so much jealousy and so few viable avenues to chase the demons away.
We all carry the seeds of self-destruction in our pockets and in many ways we spill those seeds, trying just to fill the empty space that is there just because we have lived.
I wish I could say that I always fill the voids with love - I try to - I really do. At the very least I am able to recognize that the empty spaces should be filled with things that allow me to feel better not worse.
Through 44 years of life, I've surrounded myself with people I love and people who love me, and the idea is to suffer through together, as a team, until the other side comes calling.
Yet that's an easy thing to forget. There's no doubt that you can sink into an abyss of sorts as you try and burn out the traces of pain.
Through my life I've shed my skin many times in an effort to become the man I need to become and to make it sync with my own heart.
And I will continue to do so because for some reason, today, I woke with the idea that the empty spaces have to be filled.
For me they must be filled with Faith in the Lord above, the love of my family, the love of my country, golf, Yankees, Bruce, pasta, the dogs, the way that the waves rush to the shore, the way the sun sets, the stars that fill the sky on a summer's night.
It ain't easy. Sometimes the choices we make to fill the empty spaces presents us with a whole new set of circumstances to self-destruct.
Day after day, moment after moment.
No one promised that it would be easy.
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