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| This has literally been my expression for the past three months. #pain |
The trouble is you think you have time. ~ Jack Kornfield, Buddha's Little Instruction Book
If there's one thing 2018 taught me, it's to buy my alcohol in BULK.
Kidding and not kidding.
The past year taught me that there's never enough time, and there never will be. For one, time as we know and measure it doesn't actually *exist.* The concept of years and months and hours and seconds and days and lifetimes is just a way to keep our overactive brains from flying off into crazy land.
For two, no matter how great things are, the universe is always winding up for another gut punch.
For three, you're an imperfect and flawed human being, and as such, you're never going to be able to "do it all," no matter how much time you have.
I have to ask myself as we start the steep upward descent into another unknown roller coaster of a year ... what am I doing with all my "time"? Why the hell would I pour it into fake relationships, appeasing judgmental assholes, or caring what Random McRandomface thinks?
I mean, we're all LITERALLY, RIGHT THIS VERY SECOND, hurtling toward death at an unknown rate of speed.
So what do we do?
Judging by the number of Facebook fights with Great Uncle Belzathar going on 'round here, I'm fairly certain we all just try to forget about it.
Of course, we can't be focused on our respective impending dooms every second of every day. We'd go nuts. I'm all for pushing the whole concept to the deep dark recesses of my brain, but here's the trouble - when we forget about our own mortality we often forget to
live,
really live.
It's that whole cliche -- if you knew you were going to die tomorrow, what would you do right now?
Because the thing is, you don't know. (I REALLLLLLLY HATE IT WHEN CLICHES ARE ACCURATE.)
Of course, there's a ditch the other direction, too. If nothing matters, why care
at all? Why shower and shave your legs and do your dishes and clean up after your kids and eat healthy food and exercise and put on eyeliner and take out your trash and try to be a decent fucking human being?
Honestly? I have no clue.
All I know is that those are the things that are keeping me sane right now, while my brain grapples with the idea that someone, even the most vibrant person you know, can be there one second and gone the next. I need the mundane and the routine and the normal. I need to remember that I'm here, in this mess, at this time, and that there's nothing I can do about what has happened before or what's going to happen after, but I
can be here.
Right here, right now, listening to the printer spit out a "completion" letter to my brother as one of the final steps in a grief recovery class.
I don't know how the fuck I got here, but dammit, here I am. #swearybuddha
