Is it better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all?

The other day Son asked me if I would have rather known of my Celiac years ago, or if I was glad to have eaten gluten all those years.

This is a really good question and I've put more thought into it in the days since. I certainly would never have wanted to get SO sick and malnourished as I did, but... (flashback to my friend Paula's red velvet whoopie pies) gluten is delicious.

But on the other hand, if I'd never eaten real cake, I'd probably think impostor gluten free cake is pretty good. So I guess I'm saying I haven't got any answers. But for me personally, I have to feel like cake, and cookies, and pizza, and fresh baked bread, are pretty nice things that I did get to experience. Even if they turned out to be bad for me, and even though I don't have them anymore.

To me, the idea of not even knowing what I was missing feels sadder than missing it.

What I really want is to be enough.

Trisha Yearwood - I Would've Loved You Anyway

I MissYou

Beautiful Heart

One day a young man was standing in the middle of the town proclaiming he had the most beautiful heart in all the valley. A crowd began to gather and listen to what he had to say. There was not a mark or a flaw in it and yes, they all agreed, it truly was the most beautiful heart they'd ever seen. The young man was very proud and boasted more loudly about his beautiful heart.

Suddenly, an old man appeared at the front of the crowd and said, "Your heart isn't as beautiful as mine." earning a gasp from the crowd. The young man along with the crowd looked at the old man's heart. It was beating strongly, but full of scars. It had places where pieces had been removed and other pieces put in, but they didn't fit quite right and there were several jagged edges. Some places even had deep gouges where pieces were missing entirely. The people stared with disbelief. "How can he say his heart is more beautiful?" they wondered.

The young man looked at the old man's heart, saw its state, and laughed. "You must be joking," he said. "Compare your heart with mine. Mine is perfect while yours is a mess!"

"Yes," said the old man, "yours is perfect looking but I would never trade with you. You see, every scar on my heart represents a person to whom I have given my love - I tear out a piece of my heart and give it to them. Often they give me a piece of their heart which fits into the empty place in my heart, but because the pieces aren't exact I have some rough edges, which I cherish, because they remind me of the love we shared."

The younger Man stood. Now motionless.

The crowd's silence was deafening.

"You see Son, the old Man humbly continued, giving Love is taking a chance. Although these gouges are painful, they stay open, reminding me of the love I have for those people. I hope someday they might return and fill the space I have waiting. Other times I've given pieces of my heart away and the other person never returned. Those are the empty spots you see. So now do you better understand what true perfection and beauty is?"

The crowd looked to the young Man for a resopnse. They saw he had tears running down his face.
He walked up to the old man, reached into his perfect young and beautiful heart, and ripped a piece out. He offered it to the old man with trembling hands. The old man took his offering, placed it in his heart and then took a piece from his old scarred heart and placed it in the wound in the young man's heart. It fit, but not perfectly.
The young man looked down at his own heart, no longer perfect.

But it was more beautiful than ever.

Oh Captain, My Captain

Robin Williams killed himself yesterday morning. I can't even *type* it without tearing up. Apparently he strangled/hung himself, whatever... it doesn't matter; he's gone.

Of course I was a big fan, everyone was a big fan. Of his comedy as well as his dramatic work. He was a gem, a true superstar, a genius and one of those guys you'd love to be friends with and invite to your parties. He was a gazillionaire with a wife who by all accounts loved him dearly and a successful career that spanned decades. He struggled and fought Depression, and Addiction, and fought them off successfully sometimes, and not so successfully others. 

Depression won. 

I feel like Depression always wins. And I feel helpless against its power. If someone who truly does have "everything going for them" can't fight off D, what chance do I have? Me, unemployed, unloved, uncharming, unbeautiful, underweight, impatient, needy, grumpy me... who doesn't make any significant contribution to the world in any way. In fact I'm a burden to my loved ones, and even the government. D's got a really secure foothold on me. What chance do I have? 

I keep thinking of the phrase "tears of a clown" and what it means. It used to mean to me a vague reference to something that was so sad or beautiful that it could even move a clown to tears. Now I think of it in terms of identifying myself as a member of a raconteur breed of clown. As such, we don't cry; at least not where anyone can see us. Our tears are the jokes we tell. Our tears are the almost desperate attempts to solicit a laugh out of you. The quick comebacks, the funny one-liners, the sarcastic observations and the strange connections our brain makes that are unexpected and make you chuckle. Our tears are the cocktails we drink too many of so we can overcome the social anxiety we really feel and be considered a good time. Our tears are all of the attempts we make to make ourselves loved and valuable, and make our company coveted; to get ourselves invited to parties, and asked on dates, to make up for the intense and crippling feelings of inadequacy on the inside. And the more successful the clown, the larger the inadequacies loom, because you feel that everyone only loves the clown, the makeup, the mask, the costume and nobody, nobody in the world loves YOU. 

Underlined in my life by the fact that everyone I've ever taken the mask of for has then abandoned me.

Its a long line of laughs that have been lost to D, or its offshoot, Addiction. I put them in the same category because the addiction (booze, pills, food, drugs, whatever) is a coping mechanism in a D victim. Its too prevalent to pretend they aren't the same thing. In addition to Robin Williams, we've got Freddie Prinze, Patrice O'Neil, John Candy (yes I know Candy died of a heart attack. I also want to remind you he was 43. Tell me Addiction didn't help him along.), Chris Farley, John Belushi, Mitch Hedberg, Greg Giraldo... okay I can't go on any further. Those are just the ones I can remember right now.

Depression always gets its guy. What chance do I have?