Step Into The Light
Journal Entry 6 – October 20, 2022
By Steven Maisenbacher
I’m going to step outside the boundaries of what I’ve been doing normally and speak on something that’s come to my mind in the most profound way possible. I want to elaborate on what’s going on. Wars have been fought over love. Men have moved mountains for love. And women have composed those same mountains into amazing vistas, stunning in their depth and power.
We’ve all experienced things we regret in relationships. Emotions run amok sometimes making us do or say things that we didn’t mean, or did mean and just never said.
LONG OVERDUE Bury all my pain so I can live again. Things are not the same, I finally called your name. Wasted all my life with all my trouble and strife. But I find it was not in vain. Now no more broken tears, No more wasted years. If it can't be like it was, It can be like it will be again. I finally called your name. So understand these words, It's not just something that you've heard. It's not another lie, meant to ruin and kill your soul. So see me as I am. I know I'm not the same. But I am what the Creator has let me be. A thousand sleepless nights, Internal haunted fights, With myself and my mind, I just couldn't understand. But now I finally do, And it's all because of you. You brought me back to life, When I was dead inside. I miss you now more than then, I don't know where else I can begin. Apologies were made, And I'm glad we're not the same. Steven Walks On The Grass, © October 2022
Emotions have made strong men cry and weak men strong. I’m a man ruled by passions. I obsess easily and deeply, and when I do, it’s no holds barred. When you love someone there’s nothing you won’t do for them, there’s nothing you won’t sacrifice, there’s nothing you won’t give up, and there’s nothing that can stand in the way of trying to make the person you love understand how deep your love for them is.
How many of us have been in failed relationships only to find out that we were the problems and that we’d driven love away through our stubborn, willful thoughts or actions that fell short of the mark that we would set in order to obtain what we wished for most – love. I found over the past few decades that just because you make mistakes and you’ve lost someone that you loved, you don’t stop loving them. In fact, it’s generally quite the opposite. That love forms its own beautiful pictures in your mind and heart. The memories that haunt you are the same memories you created in loving that person, but whatever happened that made it go away, it’s the same power that keeps it with you. The only difference is who you are after the fact.
We all change. Change is inevitable. There’s no comma there because it’s irrefutable; it’s a pointless endeavor to think that people don’t change. I know firsthand. The things I did in my life and the acts that I committed criminally I find abhorrent. I would no more think about committing any crimes like that than I would think of cutting my hand off with a blunt knife. I’m just not that person. I don’t see those things. I couldn’t even imagine myself going there. But the one thing I can see in all the wrong, in all the failures, and all the hurt, heartache, and anguish: the love is still there. Not for that kind of life, but for the things that I lost because of it.
How many of us have suffered addictions? Addiction so stifling that it ruined family, friends and relationships? And how many of us are in recovery? I know mine is 23 years deep, but it’s not so much a recovery as it is a rescue. I was rescued from myself by the love that I had lost and the love that I’ve found in the Creator, and the love that found me again. I can finally breathe again! Everything is so much clearer to me now that I’ve come to terms with who and what I was, and the realization that I’m not that same person anymore. The power, the sheer magnificent power of Love rescued me when nothing else could.
I had sung my death song. I was courting it at every opportunity, wishing for it, seeking it. And then love came into my heart again and I’ve carried that love like a trophy, like a beautiful treasure. I’ve embraced the pain that it caused and the joy that it brought; the sleepless nights, the beautiful dreams. Tell me what else is that powerful?
How many of us have wished for a chance to just do it over again just for one minute go back in time and unsay something said, undo something done, and move on through life from that moment as if nothing had ever happened, as if our heart hadn’t been broken, or we hadn’t broken someone’s heart. Every moment of every day in the back of my mind all the way at the very bottom of every thought there’s Love. Again I ask, how powerful is that?
I was talking to Sings today, telling her about how I had become such a sensitive emotion-based man that I can still cry over a dog food commercial. The storyline was a young girl running through the house jumping into a chair and a puppy chasing her. Then it moves on Fast Forward to an adolescent teenager sitting sideways in the chair like they’re not supposed to with the dog, now obviously older, just laying on the floor at the foot of the chair waiting on his little girl who’s not a little girl anymore. Now fast forward even further to a beautiful young woman walking in the door obviously coming from somewhere back home to visit her family maybe. An old gray-muzzled dog that had been the puppy chasing that little girl, now walks slowly to the door. He can only wag his tail he had aged so much. The young woman sits down on the floor and loves that dog. As she holds and pets him and you could feel the sheer bliss between them in the entire scene. As silly as that seems it brings tears to my eyes; hell it brought tears to my eyes right now just talking about it.
That’s the kind of love I’m talking about. Unconditional! Doesn’t matter for who or what, it’s just that powerful. No matter what, it’s love and I promise if you look past your angry words, your hurt feelings, or you’re unmet expectations and can get to the next minute with your mouth closed and your heart open, you’re going to find that love, or you’re going to realize it’s already there. Maybe this isn’t what you expected out of me, but it’s what I have to say.
I’m in a situation right now that’s less than ideal. I’m being restricted more than anybody in the building. I’m being looked upon as irredeemable by the very staff that is supposed to help me because of what I used to be. If they could only see inside my heart they would find this, but they won’t look. They all claim that I have to prove this but I myself know I don’t have to prove anything. I just have to love the way I love, that deeply, that profoundly.
So the next time someone makes you mad or disappoints you, just remember what it is about that person you love, because that part you love is still there. You just have to open your heart and let the love heal the wound. Romeo loved Juliet. That’s just one story. What’s yours? This is mine: I refuse to let anger or hate or disappointment get in my way. I will live the rest of my life In Love – obtainable or not, requited or reciprocated or not, I will not stop loving. I will not stop being the man I know I am, right now in this moment.
Steven “Walks On The Grass” Maisenbacher
Journeys of the Spirit 