A soulmate is someone who has locks that fit our keys, and keys to fit our locks. When we feel safe enough to open the locks, our truest selves step out and we can be completely and honestly who we are; we can be loved for who we are and not for who we’re pretending to be. Each unveils the best part of the other. No matter what else goes wrong around us, with that one person we’re safe in our own paradise. Our soulmate is the one who makes life come to life. 

A soulmate is an ongoing connection with another individual that the soul picks up again in various times and places over lifetimes. We are attracted to another person at a soul level not because that person is our unique complement, but because by being with that individual, we are somehow provided with an impetus to become whole ourselves.

Shadow of doubt 

Clouds over my mind 

Make my decision 

I need more time 

Disease in my head 

Feelings toward you 

Skin so soft 

Eyes so blue 

Cloud over my head 

Holds back my luck 

Drained of affection 

I pay for a fuck 

I'd tell you I miss you
But I don't know how.
I've never heard silence this loud.

Imagine there is a bank account that credits your account each morning with $86,400. It carries over no balance from day to day.

Every evening the bank deletes whatever part of the balance you failed to use during the day. What would you do? Draw out every cent, of course?

Each of us has such a bank. It's name is TIME.

Every morning, it credits you with 86,400 seconds.

Every night it writes off as lost, whatever of this you have failed to invest to a good purpose.

It carries over no balance. It allows no over draft. Each day it opens a new account for you. Each night it burns the remains of the day.

If you fail to use the day's deposits, the loss is yours. There is no drawing against "tomorrow."

You must live in the present on today's deposits. Invest it so as to get from it the utmost in health, happiness and success!

The clock is running!! Make the most of today.

To realise the value of ONE YEAR, ask a student who failed a grade.

To realise the value of ONE MONTH, ask a mother who has given birth to a premature baby.

To realise the value of ONE WEEK, ask the editor of a weekly newspaper.

To realise the value of ONE HOUR, ask the lovers who are waiting to meet.

To realise the value of ONE MINUTE, ask a person who just missed a train.

To realise the value of ONE SECOND, ask someone who just avoided an accident.

To realise the value of ONE MILLISECOND, ask the person who won a silver medal at the Olympics.

Treasure every moment that you have! And treasure it more because you shared it with someone special, special enough to spend your time with. And remember time waits for no one.

Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift. That's why its called the present. 

I thought i was the one protecting you, but I'm  the one who needs protecting. Protecting from what.

Protecting from you. 

You don't have my kind of open heart. 

The definition if insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome. 

Well let's go for a different outcome then.

You know when you talk to older couples, who have been in love for 30 or 40 or 50 years. It's always the guy who says I KNEW.

I knew right from the beginning. I'm that guy. I know.

Love throws up everything that it is not...

A tear comes to mind, when I think of you 

And remember the time when our friendship was new. 

A gentle smile centered on your face, 

And I knew that then was the time and place, 

To kiss you, I did and felt a tick back in my heart. 

I thought we'd be forever and never part, 

But now we have come to a fork in the road, 

Where we must no longer carry each other's load, 

Let the burden off our shoulders and not leave a scar, 

For the paths we are taking are very far apart. 

I will remember always the places we went, 

And cherish forever the time we've spent. 

So now is the time where I say goodbye, 

Spend one last minute lost in your eyes. 

As much as I know that we can't stay, 

I hope our paths will cross again some other day....

I hope you know how lucky you are...

We walked it for 414 days, with broken eyes and salted ears, complaining 'bout the weather like we ever had a choice. Through all the noise and self abuse, I waited for my fill of truth. Oh I'm terrified I'll achieve nothing at all

One year ago, I asked my hairdresser to cut off my hair. It was a pre-emptive strike. A few days later I would be admitted to the oncology unit at POW to undergo chemotherapy. Everyone knows that chemo takes your hair. I wanted to take control of what I could before the poison did its damage. But I left the hair salon in tears.

When I was given a cancer diagnosis at the age of 21, sitting in a doctor’s office, the room fell silent for 30 seconds, or maybe it was three minutes. Then I managed to blurt out two questions: Was I going to make it through this? My doctor told me that I was “high risk.” I would need to begin treatment immediately. The second thing I asked was whether I was going to lose my hair.

As I tried to prepare for my first round of chemo, I scoured the Internet, read the pamphlets my doctor had given me and paged through the cancer books that friends and relatives had dropped off at the house. I was still catching up on the basic details of my disease, its treatment and its prognosis. I had no idea how to prepare for the havoc it would wreak on my appearance — the part of the cancer experience that the world can see.

As the Gatorade-red poison made its way into my veins, my body began to morph within the first week. Many of my physical transformations — new surgical scars, drastic weight loss, chronic mouth sores and (maybe worst of all) infertility — were invisible to the world, the silent imprint of disease. With all of these things going on, I was surprised to find myself preoccupied by one of the more temporary side effects of chemo: the impending loss of my hair.

On balance with battling my disease, worrying about hair loss seemed petty. It’s only hair, I kept telling myself. It would grow back. But I couldn’t shake the idea that soon, everywhere I went, baldness would be my dominant (or at least most noticeable) physical trait. When you’re bald, cancer leads. Everything else follows. While much of what a cancer patient experiences is deeply personal, losing your hair is an undeniably public affair.

For the first few weeks after I lost my hair last year, I avoided going out in public. The mirror can be an onerous thing to a cancer patient, and I no longer recognised myself. Maybe I could wait it out behind the shuttered windows of my bedroom, I thought. I wanted to avoid the stares from strangers — even if most of them were just out of curiosity. I never expected cancer to make me so self-conscious.

Chemotherapy is a swift, sure stylist. Seeking inspiration and solidarity, I tried reading popular books about cancer that I found in the self-help section of Berkelouw. Many of the books sought to recast cancer as an empowering experience, even something that could be “sexy” or “cool.” But I couldn’t connect with that kind of upbeat gospel. Maybe it was too soon. I felt unsexy. I felt uncool.

I hid beneath hats and scarves, which I’d built a collection of since getting out of the hospital. But even hats felt like “cancer clothes.”

When she stares at your mouth

Kiss her

When she pushes you or hits you like a dummy cause she thinks shes

Stronger than you

Grab her and don't let go

When she starts cursing at you trying to act all tough,

Kiss her and tell her you love her

When she's quiet,

Ask her whats wrong

When she ignores you,

Give her your attention

When she pulls away,

Pull her back

When you see her at her worst,

Tell her she's beautiful

When you see her start crying,

Just hold her and don't say a word

When you see her walking,

Sneak up and hug her waist from behind

When she's scared,

Protect her

When she steals your favorite hoodie,

Let her keep it and sleep with it for a night

When she teases you,

Tease her back and make her laugh

When she doesn't answer for a long time,

Reassure her that everything is okay

When she looks at you with doubt,

Back yourself up

When she says that she loves you,

She really does more than you can understand

When she grabs at your hands,

Hold her's and play with her fingers

When she bumps into you,

Bump into her back and make her laugh

When she tells you a secret,

Keep it safe and untold

When she looks at you in your eyes,

Don't look away until she does

When she says it's over,

She still wants you to be hers

When she reposts this bulletin,

She wants you to read it

Stay on the phone with her,

Even if she's not saying anything

When she's mad,

Hug her tight and don't let go

When she says she's ok don't believe it,

Talk with her because ten years later she'll remember you

Call her at 12:00am on her birthday,

To tell her you love her

Treat her like she's all that matters to you

Stay up all night with her when she's sick

Watch her favorite movie with her or her favorite show even if you think it's stupid

Give her the world.

Let her wear your clothes

When she's bored and sad,

Hang out with her

Let her know she's important.

Don't talk about other girls around her

Kiss her in the pouring rain

When she runs up to you crying, the first thing you say is:

"Whose ass am I kicking baby?"

You are never too young to be in love, because you are never too young to die.

Love is patient and kind, it is never jealous, love is never boastful or conceited, it is never rude or selfish, it does not take offence, nor is it resentful. Love takes no pleasure in others’ sins but delights in the truth; it is always ready to excuse, to trust, to hope and to endure whatever comes. Love does not come to an end. There are three things in life that will last; faith, hope and love and the greatest of these is love

You know that place between asleep and awake;

That place where you can still remember dreaming?

That's where I will always love you.

T h a t ' s  w h e r e  I  w i l l  b e  w a i t i n g .

Into Thin Air

Where cancer is concerned, it’s safe to say there’s no such thing as good timing. But having a life-threatening disease in your 20s carries a special set of psychological and social challenges. It defies our very definition of what ought to be. Youth and health are supposed to be synonymous. If only I could sue my body for breach of contract with the natural order of things.

Cancer magnifies the in-betweenness of young adulthood: You’re not a child anymore, yet you’re not fully ready to live in the adult world, either. After my diagnosis, as I get sicker, I increasingly rely on my parents to take care of me. But at the same time, I’ve had no choice but to grow up fast. Daunting questions that most of my peers won’t have to consider for many more years have become my urgent, everyday concerns: How will I hold onto health insurance if I’m unable to work? Will I be able to have children? How long will I live?

Even inside the hospital’s oncology ward, being a young adult with cancer can make a person feel like a misfit. I’m usually the youngest patient on the floor. Young adults might just be oncology’s “tweens” — too old for the paediatric cancer floor but equally out of place in an adult oncology unit. I’m not suggesting that it’s worse to be young and sick, but rather that young adults with cancer are a less visible demographic, swept up in the mix of adult cancer statistics.

A 2009 report from the United States Department of Health and Human Services presents a shocking reality: Despite great strides in treatment for most cancer patients, adolescents and young adults ages 15 to 39 have seen little or no improvement in cancer survival rates for decades. The report describes how survival rates have “been hampered because cancer risk and adverse cancer outcomes have been under-recognised in this population.” It points to the fact that health care providers are often not on the lookout for cancer in this age group.

Nine months, eight hospitalisations and seven treatments later, I’m realising that age is an inextricable component of how we experience cancer.

Cancer has forced me to pause my life at a time when my peers are just beginning theirs. For my friends, most of them young adults in their 20s, this is an exciting time as they look forward to starting new jobs, traveling the world, going to parties, dating and finding love, and all the rest of the small and big milestones that are part of early adulthood.

Like my peers, I have yet to fully define who I want to become. But as a young cancer patient, it’s difficult to see ahead when I’m fighting for my life. I don’t know what the future holds. I just know I want to be there.

Last spring, I found out I had Cancer. Before the horror of the news even had time to sink in, I had to absorb a second shock: The chemotherapy treatments that could save my life would also make me infertile.

Leukemia is an emergency, and oncologists are the first responders: They are trained to beat cancer; everything else must take a back seat. It was only after I asked about fertility that the doctors told me about the available options.

This is one of the challenges of being  young with cancer. In many ways, I am still a child myself, relying on my parents to take care of me. But I have an adult disease. Most patients with my type of cancer, a form of acute myeloid leukemia, are long past their childbearing years. While my oncologists are intent on saving my life — and I am forever indebted to them for this — preserving my chance to be a father some day just didn’t seem to be on their radar.

A few days after my diagnosis, I was sitting at the table at home. I should have been savouring my last days before a long hospitalisation, but I was agitated from the fertility drugs. I looked across the table at my mum, and here we were, considering the benefits of freezing sperm. It was awkward territory.

A social worker cautioned me, citing the unforeseeable legal and emotional obstacles that could arise down the road. But how could I plan to have a child with anyone when I didn’t even know if I was going to survive myself? I put off the decision as long as possible, but now a nurse was waiting for my answer, and I had to decide in minutes. With some hesitation, I told them to freeze my sperm.

In most doctors’ offices, it’s hard to know why the stranger next to you is there, but everyone is in this waiting room for the same reason. No one is talking, but everybody seems to be sizing one another up.  I am wearing my uni sweatshirt emblazoned with “Class of 2012,” and I am feeling out of place. I am only in my 20s, with only one thing to do today. And now I  am looking at my shoes.

The timing in all of this, like everything else these days, is out of sequence. But this is my new reality as a young adult with cancer. And although I’m not planning for a child anytime soon, preserving my ability to have children feels like my only lifeline to an uncertain future. All of us are together and alone in this room. Hoping for life.