Smoking My Life Away

I hope I'm not smoking my life away. I hope that even as I make the hundreds of phone calls I do everyday, someone would think of me and smile. Not because of the silly jokes I've made, or the course of life I take, but because the mere thought of me brings a smile to that person's face.

Pretty pathetic, I know, but hey, I love whom I love. Anyone who knows me, really knows me, would tell you that. I love with a passion no one could ever imagine. I love with a depth nothing could ever start to measure. I love with an intensity that could shake your heart away.

Thus, I hurt with a pain so great it could make a grown man cry.

I don't know which it is, a gift or a curse. I have the capacity to give all I give, and the vulnerability to lose all I could lose. What is there to hold me back? I dare ask that now, for nothing ever has. I've always moved forward, irreversibly forward. Exposed. Transparent. Vulnerable. Not the pain of my past nor the fear of my future will take this away from me. It is not what I've become, it is what I was born to be.

I don't curse God for making me vulnerable. I thank him for making me a person who has much to offer. I thank Him even more for the people I've met along the way, and mostly for the people I was born to belong with. I thank Him for the people who have known me, accepted me, and loved me with an ardor it could put my own passion to shame. These are the people I cherish and value, the very ones whose lives I will protect from anyone, or anything, even if it means giving up my own.

One of these people may be smiling right now.

I am not smoking my life away.