The War is Over

"Good. Use your aggressive feelings. Let the hate flow through you." This is a line spoken by Emperor Palpatine in Star Wars: Episode VI-Return of the Jedi.
   The character reminds me of myself from when I was drinking and vigilantly angry at the world, or as I put it now, "How to become exactly what you're mad about." I had a fur lined pity pot strapped to my backside, and no one understood poor me. I was right about everything, and was more than willing to show you. Big on justice, I was also willing to punish offenders. I had good intentions, and I beat them into any ear that would listen. Ofcourse I was in a state of slow decay, but I was willing to carry that cross (with what I imagined to be marquis lights on it) for the whole world, and if that doesn't sound like Hitler, you're not listening. I was outraged at humanities failings, but if you could look inside of me, you'd have seen a worse beast who thrived on my own destruction. Hate ruled me, and the one I hated most was me. I "ceased fighting anything or anyone," in total self defeat, a complete collapse of the ego, in a big way, I died, murdered by me. Freedom from my own prison came with acceptance that I did not have a single answer, that if I were to forgive myself I had to forgive others, that judgement and blame were no longer allowed, and words best left to those better equipped to handle them. I became the student, the teachable. Humilty became something to seek, and love practiced first for others, then became a love for myself as a matter of honesty. After all, how could I see something in you to be loved, if it were not in me too? The unsalvageable, the ruined, the throw-away of me, became treasure to be nurtured and loved, even....Even, the dark side of me, and that internally screaming baby of a woman, enraged at everything, and hurt more than hurt became someone who only asked for love....my own.
  This is why there is no fight left in me. I became tired of trying to move walls that were never made for moving, and I became tired of thinking I knew where they needed to be. Such an ego! I became tired of my preconceived notions of perfection, and tired of the attitude I had of, I'll show you! I'll hurt......me.
   I didn't know. I just didn't know that the energy of anger and fight feeds the things I fought. I didn't know that I was adding to the problem, and I tried so hard with each day becoming harder. I didn't know I was building the very monsters I wanted to be free of.
  I am so sorry, so sorry I didn't know another way. Near 15 years, it's been now. Fifteen years of wonder, of innocence and a second chance to see, to feel, to love, and see beauty in everything as it is, including me with all of my mistakes and flaws. Sometimes it's precisely the flaws I perceive that are where beauty is found.
  Above all there is love, and many things too strong, as I was, to conquer, have melted when loved. All of the armor and anger in the world fall weak to love, as I did. I simply didn't see it coming. As unfair I thought this horrible weapon, this love, it was the only thing that saved me.
   So think nothing great of me, nor blind of me that I have not yet seen that to be vigilant about, or that I am too innocent to hate, because I know these places, and I know that in me is the capacity to be the worst or the best of humanity. I choose innocence, never ignorance, but love. The monsters I wanted to conquer with hate, have become small and some no longer exist. They left the world outside, because my insides changed. I'm still creating. I just create better things now.
   The war is over in me. The healing has far to go, and my education in compassion for others and the self is ongoing. There is a place past the anger, and it looks a lot like sweet childhood, except that it has experience and perhaps more patience.
     I don't know how long I'll get to be here, how long I'll get to create in the world whatever is inside of me, so .....Might as well dance.
tina jones