As I sit here, with tears rolling down my face like a warm ocean current, salty and powerful, I cannot help but wonder why my problems feel so significant? The weight of the world feels as if it has rested on my shoulders, yet I alone do not make up the rest of the world. My feelings as deep as a trench, my mind as hateful as the night’s darkness have a sort of unnecessary importance. I exist on a floating rock in the middle of nothingness, a place where the moon controls the tides, a ball of fire determining the light in my life. In its unbeatable beauty, I am one of the things with the privilege of living on a liveable water sphere, one of many within the infinite universe. I am merely a speck of dust in comparison to everything that is known, and more importantly the unknown. As humans, we have this way of making everything our subordinate, allowing ourselves to be superior. However, where would we be without the sunlight that shines so soothingly into our skin on a warm summer’s day, allowing perhaps the slightest color change in our outward appearance? Where would we be without the gentle water we drink from, the kind that refreshes not only the body, but the soul? Where would we be without the rough waters, the ones that give us food as we naturally have assumed it is in our right to eat, the ones we travel from destination to destination through? Where would we be without the grass that we walk on, the vegetables that we so meticulously grow? Where would we be without the companions we have made in Earth’s other creatures, whether domestic friends, or dangerous foes? Where would we be if the sun didn’t rise or set, challenging all perception of time itself? We would be nothing. Yet, wouldn't that make us everything? You may only be a blip in space, a grain of sand in time, but you have allowed yourself to become one with the foundation of existence. You have found a way to utilize, revere all it is nature can bring to the everlasting and ever evolving table. Zooming out millions of lightyears, you are unseen and unimportant, for unlike the stars who have existed for what appears like an eternity, you cannot make it out alive. However, nature would be nothing without acknowledgement. So in comparison to the delicately blooming flowers, the bees who have a purpose to pollinate them, what is ours? If we are nothing and are only something due to something we make out of everything, isn’t life’s purpose finding a purpose within life? Isn’t our job here not to be everything, but make something out of everything? And as I sit here now calming down, understanding my role within this enticing planet we have colonized and made our own, I have developed the comprehension that my tears, although ocean-like, do not allow me to find life’s purpose. Instead, they stop me. The Earth doesn’t stop moving just because it’s weight appears to have been forced upon me. It rather keeps going to force me to also keep going. The melodious sound of morning birds, the soft trickle of rain on a window, the smell of pine, the swaying of blossoming tree branches in the midst of spring-these are the things that give life purpose, feeding into my purpose of making life, well...purposeful. I live for the sound of waves crashing on a nearby shore, for the way butterflies seemingly float in the sky. I live to see the colors of the sunrise signalling the start to a new day, even more the sunset when such a magnificent day has passed. The reason I live is to see the way birds dance to get each other’s attention, the view of a rainbow after a storm. Currently coming out of my own intrinsic storm, the dark clouds have passed to reveal beauty in a world where I am both nothing and everything.
0 Comments
I roll the windows down in order to finally feel something that doesn’t hurt. I hop in the car the way I do at the end of all bad days, first adjusting the seat, then fixing the mirror, then eventually connecting to the radio. I begin the journey with a sigh, steadily pulling out of the driveway in an attempt to hold back tears until I’m out of view. As wind travels swiftly across my tear stained face, I begin to feel, just for a moment, okay. The sobs begin to shorten, then muffle into nothingness. The road ahead now looks clearer, my vision less blurred. As my unwashed hair whips violently in the surrounding breeze, I notice my favorite song is playing. My shaking hand once gripping the wheel is now turning the volume up loud enough to drown out the horrible singing coming out of my mouth. The road signs began to pass by faster and in each impending moment I notice my lips curling. I’m smiling. How is it that I’m smiling?
With each increasing mile, this newfound happiness isn’t fading. It is as if this blaring music, this gusting wind, this miraculous sunset- it is saving me. In this state of serenity, I pay careful attention to the colors of the sky. Pink. Orange. Yellow. It was pouring earlier, a storm like I’ve never experienced. Yet as these colors mingle and compliment one another so gracefully, the sky reminds me that every day can end beautifully. This sense of freedom, this sense of wonder is guiding me along a road I am unaware of. But just because I don’t know where my destination is, doesn’t mean I’m lost. For like the storm earlier, my intrinsic rain will always pass. And although the actions of others may add moisture in my internal atmosphere that trickles down my face when I cannot hold it anymore the way clouds darken, I too will run dry. No cloud can rain forever. Do you think the sun questions if it’s enough? Do you think the sun forgets just how important it is? No, for without it the world couldn’t function properly. The way the sun doesn’t have to decide the way the Earth revolves around it, I am incapable of controlling every person, every anxious moment, and every circumstance around me. The sun doesn’t know exactly what time it will rise in the morning, nor the exact moment it will set, so why do I have to have everything figured out? It just knows that at some point it will rise and make the difference it was meant to make. The sun doesn’t worry about a silly raincloud that crosses its path because it knows that it will shine again soon enough. The sky now darker, my brain back in focus, I look at the road ahead of me. The ground is now dry, the sun out of view. I am somehow home. In a strange way I feel at peace, for if the sun isn’t perfect, why am I trying so hard to be? If the sun doesn’t try to control the clouds, why am I trying to control situations out of my hands? I grew envious of a star on a drive that seemingly rescued me, one that brought me home. As I stepped out of the car, I realized that the weight previously resting on my shoulders is gone. Perhaps that leased Jeep Cherokee is magical, or maybe my hands were on autopilot bringing me back into a familiar driveway. But my mind, like the car, will always find a way to bring me where I need to be, a place where I am reminded of the sun and its glorious end every night. So thank you, Jeep, for listening to every scream, every cry, every horrid sing along, and allowing me to leave your walls okay again. So you think that you broke me as you drove away?
Tears flooding down my face because there was nothing left to say. Little do you know a smile still crosses my face, yet because of a different car that pulls in my driveway. So you think that you tore me down with your lies and your deceit all because for days I couldn’t eat and couldn’t sleep? But now I stay up at night, not to ponder what I did wrong, instead so I can fall asleep with my new best friend on the phone. I have won. I have won not because I knew my worth, I have won because I grew out of that worth. Like a butterfly emerging out of it’s cocoon, I too grew out of the fear restricting me to you. I have won. I was scared to be vulnerable, to let love back in. How can you think you broke me when my happiest place is now with him? Like an army, I fought relentlessly to fight away the pain, to simply be okay. But the armour grew too heavy and he is the one who carried it away. Iron piece by iron piece, he stripped my love to the core, putting my entire heart in his hands and nothing more. I won. So you think you shattered me when voicing the words, “I don't want you”? Maybe then, but when he’s in front of me, my entire world is within view. I’ve won. You can think I am the victim missing out on your drive and your charm, but may I remind you I am victorious lying comfortably in his arms. I’ve won. I have won. I won. I believe that everything happens for a reason. The outcome to certain events may not always seem evident, nor will the purpose of every circumstance come to light easily, but I believe that, eventually, you understand why every event has occurred, and that it has occurred exactly the way it is meant to.
In the midst of emotion it is hard to understand why what is happening to you is happening at all. Why am I feeling this constant weight forced heavily on my shoulders, a feeling that won’t let up no matter what I do? Why did my ex-best friend let me down greater than I knew she was capable of? Why, oh why, did he give up on us? Why did he give up on me? I have sat in bed night after countless night pondering these questions until the feeling of unanswered numbness has taken over me, the only logical choice I have left is to go to bed, knowing even for just 8 hours, my mind will be at peace. Yet I have come to understand every action has an equal and appropriate consequence, and sometimes these consequences aren’t consequences at all, instead blessings. This weight on my shoulders- it’s testing me. The feeling of not being enough that seems to take over every part of my daily life is testing whether or not I will give in, or rise above. This feeling I’m forced to endure of constantly sinking is my sign to do better, to be better. To prove to myself that I am so much stronger than I believe. Being burdened by the persistent feeling of offness makes me more of the person I want to become, that I strive to be. She let me down? After countless months of love, being there for each other more than anyone else, doing everything together, she proved who she really was? Well, I learned. I grew. I now understand that when someone shows you their true colors, you must believe them, even if it results in disappointment. Because she has stabbed me in the back repeatedly, I have learned to be forgiving, however, not a pushover. To forgive, not forget. Due to the fact I’ve been continuously talked down upon by someone who used to make wonderful memories with me, I’ve come to understand that when someone goes low, you go high. Everything that happens to you in life is teaching you the important lessons only experience can grant you, the reasons behind it all. But why did he give up on me, on us? This is a question I have yet to find the reason behind. I know, however, everything will work out exactly the way it’s supposed to. Whether it is the issue of right person, wrong timing, or if we truly weren’t right for each other at all, I am learning everyday the worth I have in myself and all it is I deserve in such a beautiful world. I am gaining the courage each and every day to wake up and begin again, without answers, without knowing the reason behind the events that are making me better the more time passes. Maybe this in itself is the reason for the loss of my greatest love, the reason for my greatest heartbreak- to comprehend the fact I don’t have standards too high, I didn’t do anything wrong, that I am enough. Sometimes, you just have to let people go when they need to, remembering they will come back if they are supposed to. Patience is a virtue, and although the answers aren’t clear now, I believe in my heart, more than anything, they will become crystal clear soon enough. You think it was some sort of coincidence you woke up this morning? You think it was by some chance that you scored the winning goal? You think that by acing that test, dropping that friend, meeting that person, it was all random? You were put on this Earth for a reason, to excel. You were woken up this morning to be better than you were yesterday. You aced that test, you scored that goal to show that hard work truly pays off. The people that come and go in your life shape you, ultimately develop you into who you are meant to be. Nothing in this life that we are ever so lucky to live, no matter how challenging or how difficult, is done by coincidence. Everything happening around you, for you, to you- I believe it is all happening for a reason. |
|