DAY ONE

Hello my friends. Welcome to the first of the twelve days.

When I was a child I dreamed incredible dreams and I had incredible fears. Sometimes my fears mixed with my dreams. Maybe you know what I mean. Maybe you don’t. Maybe you’re still having those fretful dreams. Wherever you are and whatever you’re experiencing, I love you…and that has nothing to do with how you feel about me.

But back then I didn’t love you. I feared you…but not just you…I feared life. I feared death. I feared myself. So I said and did many things to protect myself from the fear. Maybe you did too.

How did you cope with childhood? How did you cope with friendships, school, relationships, family, growing up, becoming you? Do you remember? Do the memories hurt? Do you have shame mixed with joy? Happiness mixed with disappointment? What went right? What didn’t?

I was born in 1957, the beloved son of two wonderfully young foolish people trying on the garment of parenthood. In 1977 I died…but my body lived on. And those two wonderful parents of mine, as oblivious to me as I was to them, never knew I had passed on.

In 1978 I was born again. If you know what that means then I don’t need to say any more to you. If you don’t know what that means, then you’ll just have to find out. Stick around…who knows what might happen. Then there’s a few of you who think you know what it means but you don’t and because you think you do, you’ll never know what it really means and that’s sad…for you.

Death is an interesting phenomenon. I’m sure I don’t understand it. I hate it and I’m fascinated by it. And I hate it. And I’m drawn to it daily. But living death was much worse.

If you’ve ever done time on this earth as a shade, a wraith walking in the crack between the world that is and the world that isn’t then you know what happened to me. If you’re still living there…I don’t know what to tell you except there are two ways out and they’re both final…but they’re not both equal.

How many of our friends, our families, our brothers, sisters, cousins, neighbors, school chums and children (dear God we’re all just children) have moved beyond our reach forever? You may think you’re too far gone but if you’re a living dog then you’re much better than a dead lion. Think about it.

I like... no that’s not true...I LOVE the scene in The Matrix where Morpheus offers Neo the Red pill. Have you seen the movie? Did you like it? Did you hate it? Have you asked yourself why?

If you haven’t seen it, the hero is a seeker named Neo who is looking to find out what’s really going on in his world and what is this thing that he knows only as The Matrix. Morpheus, a person claiming to know what The Matrix really is, offers Neo two pills: one red and one blue.

The red pill is an opportunity to see ‘beyond the world that has been pulled over our eyes to blind us from the truth’ and as Morpheus says “to see how deep the rabbit hole really goes”. The blue pill is the fall back position: If Neo chooses the blue pill, he can go back to sleep and forget that any of this had ever happened.

How many times have you (and I) taken the blue pill and gone back to sleep pretending all this never happened?

I’ll see you tomorrow…or I won’t…

@ 2010 Joseph Ricciardi Jr