‘Cause I was born and raised
To live beyond
The heft and weight
Of a world undone

But I don’t mean to be a bother
I don’t need you to take my burden away
And I ain’t afraid of dying
Cold and alone

Traipsing though the utter dark
Walking underneath the dead moonlight
Without any great concern
For what I’ve missed or how many bridges have burned

Like a bird who flies
All the way from the north
My heart will roam
In search of warmth

When my time comes

When I was young
I didn’t know too much
I thought that I could rule the world
Then I grew up
I found out life was hard
Harder than stone

Very seldom does one blog post lead me to another in such a specific way. Yesterday after writing about what great love is and breaking the cycle of traumatic love, generational trauma, etc, I immediately said to myself “age is making you soft.”

I paused and thought about how I don’t want to be soft, and that’s probably society’s standards for what a “man” is supposed to be getting in my head. Just because I approach things in a softer, more empathic way, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s bad. It also doesn’t make me any less of a man. If anything I’d argue it makes me more so.

Most men are too insecure with their masculinity to be comfortable being vulnerable, opening up, being “soft”. Let’s face it though, we’re in an age where we are not hunting and gathering while the women are at home cooking and cleaning. That shit went out the window a long time ago, and in some senses rightfully so. Look if a woman wants to stay at home, take care of the kids, cook, and clean, I respect that. But if a women wants to go out and make something of herself, have a career with goals and dreams, I also respect that. Neither one of those things makes a women less strong, less of a miracle in the world. So why does having a soft approach to life, being vulnerable, being open, talking about your feelings, make you less of a man?

Well the short answer is it doesn’t.

The long answer is society thinks as a man you have to be tough, and emotionless, because at some point in time men went out and hunted for food and had all these primal instincts, but let’s face it, the world we live in now doesn’t require that. I personally require some of these dumb things that only “men” should have to do. I like to open doors for women, I like that I can fix most anything, I like that I can change a tire, and I like that I can defend myself. I don’t think those things make me any less or more of a man, and I don’t believe in the saying “man up” because we live in a country where the leading cause of death for men between 18-40 is suicide, so you telling someone who’s struggling that they need to man up, or that it’s not okay to struggle, well, that’s not sick.

It seems like we’re really going out of our way to be fucking assholes to each other. Everyone wakes up and has to try to figure it out like the rest of us. We’re all fucked up, everyone’s just fucked up a little different than everyone else. We’re becoming conditioned to this idea that you cant disagree with someone, or that you cant have a conversation with someone you don’t see completely eye to eye with. I just don’t think is sustainable as a way to live.

Some days I’m harder than stone, but other days people bring out my soft side, and I’m thankful for those people.

Be true to yourself, because when that dying day comes, it’ll just be you.

Where the skies are gold not gray,

J.