Sundials in the shade, or unrealized potential, or missed opportunities according to Ben Franklin. In school we are made to do everything in the hopes there would be something that we would be good at or better yet something that would captivate or attention and distract us from going down the wrong path. What is keeping us from realizing our natural raw talent. The skill that was embedded inside the womb or was it all a rouse to keep us distracted and suppressed all these years later? I like to read and uncover the life and times of the people before us. I don’t like to revisit the regurgitated words of somebody who doesn’t know, who has never lived during the time time and worse yet trying to profit off of another’s demise. Everybody is so quick to open up the latest book from the best seller’s list like that author in question is going to provide us something insightful, some idea that has never been thought up before. Who were you before they told you that coloured kid beside you wasn’t good enough to be your friend. The one who had the same style as you and shared their lunches with you because that is what friends do. You like my bologna? I would love to have your peanut butter and after this let’s go make castles in the sand. What is your strength? What defines you as being you? If somebody had to explain you in one word what would that be?

I was shy. I learned how to cry it seems before I learned how to talk. My Dad was my hero and my mom was my best friend. My sister at times appeared to be my enemy but that was because she was reflecting onto me all the things I had hoped I could be. She was fierce and I was weak. She was friendly and I was meek. I loved her witty banter and humour and all everybody who knew who her gravitated towards her. I spent many years wishing that was me. I was envious of her friendships and down right spiteful of her best friend. I was jealous of their loyalty knowing that was a bond I was incapable of having in my life. Sure I could make friends easy but I sure as hell couldn’t keep them. I trusted myself even less than I trusted them. I hated myself for the things I did at such a young age. The shadow that loomed over me was attached to me much in the same way Eeyore had his, ““It’s the only cloud in the sky. And it’s drizzling. Right on me. Somehow, I am not surprised.” And somehow I didn’t mind. In my mind if I didn’t have many friends maybe I could take away their pain by moving it onto me. It became my gift to humanity. The more I suffered the more I hoped that the sun would come out of the clouds for them. I found a way to find happiness even when inside me was a tumultuous mess. My wish became to stop others from hurting in any ways that I could. I did love life and all that came with it, I just wished that in the end we all didn’t have to pay the ultimate price.

Time does stand still for those that listens but it quickly picks up where sound left off. Life in it’s most simplistic form can be found in many shapes, sizes and colours all around us yet we still want to try and change it. We are never happy with the gifts nature has intended for us as we build sky rises to the heavens and dig underground into hell. We work in these ways that are detrimental to our survival yet we keep working away like things are going to change. My strength right now is also my biggest ally. It is the only thing I can do to recover my soul and set my heart free. I have lied and spun many tales that I hope were to my advantage. Some were, some weren’t. What I like about the truth is it is the only barrier that usually separates you from me. I am not in it to win friends unless you consider me doing right by me an act of loyalty. I don’t have an opinion just to be controversial. I read about the lives that were hindered in some way or form by others and what is right there in history is horrifying to me. What I am faced to learn is the truth of who we were. Who we all were. We weren’t as noble and as honourable as we would like to believe. When given the choice we are no better than any of them who were trying to form a nation at that time. The way some of us talk, “oh, I wasn’t there, that wasn’t me or my family.” I don’t give a damn if you were because we are talking about now. If somebody tells you right here, right now that something that happened in the past affects them to their core you should honour those feelings and try to heal them. Somewhere throughout their time line in multiple layers of DNA is a rupture that was brought on by the hands of another. They don’t know why they feel fear or rejection ball they can tell you is that it is there. Their shadows are so much darker and thicker then we could ever imagine and their sundials will never be moved from dark corners. Unless of course we lend a hand and our eyes for them to navigate through all the dark. Why is it that we have closed ourselves off from others yet we so blindly follow those we can’t see? Not everybody is our saviour and not everybody wans us to see. What we need to do is surround ourselves with those that have a genuine interest with helping us be all that it is we can be.