Music is love, love is life.

I’ve decided to try all of Alton Brown’s recipes. 

I made his Red Velvet Cake and it was so amazing that I didn’t even get a picture of it before someone dug into it. I’ll have to re-make it so you can see what it looks like.

I’ll keep you posted.

I got a book from the library called “The 3 A.M. Epiphany”, and I decided to finally give it a shot. This is using #136 (beginning sentence) and #137 (ending sentence). This is the first time I’ve done this, so give me a break~

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She said, “I know what it’s like to be dead.”

She sat down in her chair across from me, “Not in the literal sense, of course, but dead inside. Alive and kickin’ on the outside, but the spark of my life was smothered in shit. Nothing could make me happy. No material things that I bought, no food, and not even the sweetest music could move me to feel anything, let alone smile.  My heart was empty. Like, if I saw a movie or a play that supposedly ‘didn’t leave a dry eye in the house’, I was the dry eye. I felt nothing.”

She paused for a moment and shifted in her chair, “Calloused.”

Reaching for the glass of water on the coffee table between us, she said, “I was completely calloused from years of taking Robert Frosts’ advice and sojourning on the ‘road less travelled.’ I came across giant insurmountable roadblocks, not to mention being thrown off my horse more than a few times and being buried in a giant pile of crap that life dumped on me.  I began to think that the path I’d taken, this life, wasn’t worth it anymore. I couldn’t turn around and go back, but I just couldn’t push myself further or dig myself out…” She trailed off as she raised the glass of water to her lips to take a huge gulp.

She placed it back on the table, “It was easy for me to blame everyone else for my problems and set-backs. I mean, being dead inside, you tend to become so absorbed in your own self-pity and even if you try, it’s hard to find a way out of such a dark place.”

I nodded in reply.

“I felt like such a burden when people would take a break from their seemingly perfect lives to help me or give advice, so I started to talk to less and less people. My circle of friends became smaller and I became a homebody which, of course, helped me fall deeper into the abyss of self-loathing. It was then when I started thinking about what it would be like to be dead physically if I was already dead emotionally and spiritually. I wouldn’t be anything, I wouldn’t have to go through the pain of life, and I certainly wouldn’t have to put up with other people always trying to help me.”

I pursed my lips and let out a “hmmm.”

She took a sip from the glass of water again, “Unless you’ve been there,” she said in a very matter-of-factly tone, “you really have no idea what it’s like to feel that way. Then to have people attempt to help you dig out of a six to eight feet  pile of shit that life had tried to bury you under when you don’t want their help in the first place.”

“So what made you want to start digging your way to the surface?” I asked.

“Him,” she replied.

“Him?”

“Him…” she dreamily responded, “He who didn’t try to fix me; who didn’t want to do anything but love me for me.  He helped me realize that I…me and only me…needed to get myself out of this, and without the help of anyone. I needed the support, not the help.”

“And He gave you that support?”

“Absolutely!” She exclaimed, her eyes suddenly lighting up. “It was like He breathed life back into my spirit and filled my heart with love and hope so that I could change my outlook and get myself out.”

“Sounds like you’re doing just fine now,” I deduced out loud.

“I am better than ever. I now feel that I have a reason to live and keep fighting to follow the path and get to the end. It’s not going to get you anywhere in life if you get stuck on the tough stuff and waste your time dwelling on it. Sometimes you have to take a step back and look at it from a different angle, and sometimes, it takes an extraordinary push to make you do it.”

“That’s similar to something the great Socrates said,” I said.

She replied, “An unexamined life is not worth living.” 

“Just do it like Egypt and the brain. Swirl up some hot poker and just rip it out…”

Who knew that 3 words could make me feel like I’m walking on air?