Thursday, August 6, 2015

The Journey of The Van: The Ugly Forest

If each and every one of us were living our own Epic Heroic Journey, as I mentioned in a previous post, how would you know what you're supposed to do next?

The simple answer is that you cannot know.  It's impossible to know.  Soldiers talk about the Fog of War, where you are in the middle of a shitstorm and have no way of knowing how the battle is going.  You might be winning your fight but the other army might be winning the battle.

Will you know who you are when you die or will Death have to tell you?

It's hard to know what we're doing sometimes.  The journey we have undertaken is strange.  Life is weird.  And we live in some very interesting times.

I have a friend who is going through a nasty problem concerning her daughter.  The child's father, a neglectful and apathetic man, suddenly decided he wanted custody of the daughter just days before they were to move to a different state.  Imagine being ready to move and a child's other parent, who had been silent and absent, suddenly keeps the child during a rare visit so he can say "goodbye."

This is the problem my friend ran into.  It's a disgusting thing to do to somebody.  And knowing what it is like to have a child suddenly ripped out of your life, I know how dark the feelings and thoughts can become.

It takes a lot of wisdom to fight a dragon.  It takes time, resources, and nobody can do it alone.  If you would like to take a minute and read more about it, then please do so HERE.

This is her dragon right now.  This is the battle she has to fight.  We've all got those.  Some are uglier than others, some we're not supposed to win, and sometimes this is how it is all supposed to end.

It's easy to forget about these battles we wage in our lives because we really do live in savage times.  The brutality of the world around us might be painted in bright colors and have smooth surfaces, but it doesn't make the blood and pain any less real.

I forgot my path a bit.  I got lost.  It's easy to do when the path goes dark and you don't know what you are supposed to be doing or where you are going.  I don't even know what I'm looking for.  A grail?  A person?  Is the person a grail?  Am I supposed to be running to something or from it?

I don't know where I'm going but I'm going.

This doesn't worry me.  I have no idea what my story is going to be.  Am I in a horror story?  A romance?  Do I get the girl before I die?

Instead of being confused by this, I'm simply ignoring the questions and just keeping my feet moving.  I was angry a few days ago.  Then depressed.  Again.

But now I realize that's part of the story.  That's part of the epic journey and when my story gets told to a bunch of kids sitting in a circle around a campfire some night in the future, the storyteller will have to say I lost the path for a while.

My friend will have a story to tell.  So will her daughter.  Even the selfish and cruel father will have something to say, thought I doubt anybody will want to hear it.

Keep on the path, folks.  Keep your head up and your feet moving.  Keep walking despite the shit in your way.  Boulders, rocks, snakes, liars and thieves.  It's all just a series of props in your story.

Sometimes, the trees of this haunted forest talk to me.  They whisper ugly, terrible things they heard echoing in the back of my head.  And they sing songs about the pointlessness of life.  How nobody will know or care to know even my name.

I don't know what I even want at the end of this road.  I'm only walking it because I've got nothing better to do and there was nothing for me back where I was.  I like that.

I find comfort in knowing the audience will be just as a surprised as I am when I get to where I'm going.    

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