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It has been ten years since my life peaked. It has been twelve years since I was known as Magick, the man who walked on water and never had a woman turn him down for anything he asked for.

A little secret. Magick never really asked for anything. No one ever quite figured that out.

The journey since 1998 has not always been easy. At times it was like a visit to hell while wearing armor created for me by the angels. I was destroyed in 1999. I was destroyed in 2007. I've been destroyed so many times it is like a running joke. If they couldn't destroy me by taking my job, my home, my car and my girlfriend in 1999, what else might they try to destroy me with? If they couldn't destroy me in 2007 by having the one time great love of my life betray me in the most insidious ways, what else might they try to destroy me with?

Not hardly. They still have a few shells left in their shotgun but I will not be destroyed. I feed off the desire to destroy me. It reminds me that I am (mostly) alive. I've had more than most people have had and I've lost more than most people could lose. I've been down lower than most can imagine. I've risen up higher than most have risen. I don't smile much any longer. I fucking grin.

I once told you that you can do anything. That is still very much true. The thing on the edge is that you will need to take it a step forward. Or backwards. Or sideways. You have to be able to survive anything. Life will conspire against you, against the plan you have for life and it will tear that plan apart and spit upon it and piss down it's throat. To do anything you must be able to survive anything thrown in your path. I've survived death. I've survived losing everything and living on the streets. I've survive being cut to ribbons and an attempt to turn me into a pathetic enabler of a person with near-textbook borderline personality disorder. Do you really want to fuck with me?

Eighteen months I have spent depending upon the kindnesses of others to have a place to live, to be able to eat, to be able to have a place to sleep... I wouldn't have been able to do it in any other way, but some understand how big a deal it is to me that I will once again have my own apartment in four days from now. I will once again be in command. I am on the verge of releasing the complete power of this fully operational battle station.

I have lost nothing. I have only gained by the nature of my experiences. I could have let them destroy me but I turned the tables on them. Those things that have driven me to the edge are now things that make me more capable than ever of confronting any challenge and coming out with roses. You cannot buy the things that destruction gives you. The only thing you can do is let them embrace you and then embrace them in return.

Destruction is a valuable tool. Nothing else shows you that you are on the wrong path in quite the same way. Sometimes you need to be smacked hard in the head to see the error of your ways. Sometimes you need the rug pulled out from under you before you realize you aren't on the kind of solid ground you thought you were.

In the end there is no one except you and who you are. That is who must deal with the challenges of life. No one can truly hold your hand through the most difficult of times. I've had some wonderful people hold my hand through the most difficult passages of my life. I love them and I need them, but at the same time I know I have the strength to rise up from any debacle.

Eighteen months or so ago I faced a challenge. I sat with a woman who loved me and who also loved the woman I was involved with and living with. We knew it was the last day for a long time that we would love each other. We knew we would come to hate each other for a long time before the planets aligned again and allowed us to live again.

I told her not too long ago, "I had to let her destroy me. It was the only way to completely remove her from my life. She thought she was playing me. I was playing her with much higher stakes. My stakes were more than she could comprehend. That is why she lost."

You can do anything. You can survive anything. Disaster is an opportunity. It is a chance to prove yourself, to show you can rise up strong in the face of disaster. The true measure of your soul is not how you greet the good times in life. It is how you face the challenges that present themselves in your life.

And if you don't know how to face the challenges of a life gone horribly wrong, you either won't survive for very long or you will learn very quickly.

Never doubt. If I can survive anything, so can you, for you are twice the person I will ever be.


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