DOUBT THOU THE STARS ARE FIRE, DOUBT THAT THE SUN DOTH MOVE, DOUBT TRUTH TO BE A LIAR, BUT NEVER DOUBT THAT I LOVE THEE. Seven years, four days and three hours ago, I was standing behind a very expensive, very unexceptional mahogany desk quietly reflecting a life plan gone horribly wrong. I sat there, utterly vacant and lonelier than I have ever been, mourning the last shred of Hope that had just been taken from me. This was it. As of December 31, 2007, my life would officially be sacrificed at the altar of mediocrity. And the worst part was that when I peered deep into the eyes of my executioner, I realized it was a man that resembled me exactly, except more greedy and more sad than I remembered him to be. For about half an hour, I sat there in silence, grieving over the glory of a life that could have been. I remember wondering how in the hell it was possible that I had deviated so profoundly from the person that I once remembered as AJ Leon. I remember thinking about my tattered notebook sitting in the third drawer of my overpriced desk, with the beginnings of writings I was supposed to have pursued and adventures I was supposed to have embarked on and projects I was supposed to have mustered the courage to launch. And then I thought about Melissa. My sweet Melissa Leon. And I remembered all the promises I made to her back when we were just kids - that we would traverse the wide world together, that we would see and try everything, that we would make beautiful things together and that people would treasure them, that we would be unafraid, that we wouldnt listen to anyone and that in doing so we would change the world. Ill never forget this moment because the most brutal truth of all was not that I was a Fool, but that I was Liar. That I had defrauded the one solitary human that had ever actually loved me enough to believe in me. That I had made a sucker of my one genuine advocate, my one true companion. And as I sat there, pen in hand, ready to sign my very own faustian deal with an Armani-clad devil that would relinquish the rest of my living days to the hellions of greed and accumulation. It finally hit me. That although *I* could maybe continue to endure living an undistinguished forgery of my own life. That although *I* could possibly continue to daily anesthetize myself with the vapid trappings and materialistic accouterments amassed by feckless souls who live timid lives that never know neither victory nor defeat. I simply could not bring the Love of my life down with me. You see, in four days time, I was going to be standing in a sanctuary, glaring deep into the crystal blue eyes of my dear Melissa, and I knew that if I lied to her again, on that sacred day, that I would lose myself entirely, and that I would be lying to her everyday for the rest of my life. And that was a sin far too great for even a fraud like me to endure. So, I walked. I severed ties with the carefully manicured world I had constructed for myself, and I began the cathartic process of remembering who this wonderful woman had fallen in love with in the first place. ---- There are those in life that bring us repose by simply being, by inhaling and by exhaling and by existing in the same Space and in the same Time as we do. To me, that is my darling Melissa. And today. I celebrate 7 years worth of adventuring and changing the world with the most inexorable, the most courageous, the most radiant human that I have ever known. Its not that I cant imagine what my life would be like without her in it, its that I cannot imagine that Life itself ever took place without her around. The ideology of everything I have ever done, of Misfit itself, only works if it is indeed possible to have Round Tables filled with people who love and will fight for one another, governed only by an implied sense of honor and loyalty coupled with a willingness to sacrifice in order to change everything. In other words, Misfit only works if fairy tales are actually true. If people actually exist that are less concerned by what they seek to gain than by what they desire to give. But those types of people are rare. And rarer still are the people who are willing to be first to such an experiment. The true believers. The Melissas of this planet. The cold pressed truth is that my entire Life, I have been surrounded by people who tell me what Im not capable of, what ideas of mine wont work and how they wont work and that maybe I should just slow down, think smaller and do less. But not Melissa. She is an unfiltered version of Relentless. There has never been an idea too crazy, an adventure too dangerous, a deadline too aggressive. There has never been a solitary time that I have mentioned one of my wild-eyed concepts to her over the past 7 years, that she has not immediately responded, great, how do we make it happen? She is not my closest confidant, she is the only one I have ever had. The words have yet to be construed that could possibly articulate just how profoundly I cherish you, Melissa. You are the last and luminous remnant of a fallen world, my dear. You are the type of poetry that pushes back the darkness. Thank you for existing. For being immutable. For believing in me when no one else would. And for validating everything I have ever stood for. Happy Anniversary, sweetheart. I do love nothing in this world so well as you.
Posted on: Mon, 05 Jan 2015 00:58:24 +0000
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