It takes effort to feel happy--likely because the effort makes whatever reward worthwhile, and because if we are honest, the effort is reward enough. Even when the task is bothersome and morose (perhaps especially then) we find the satisfaction that we search for. I think we are hard-wired to give, to sacrifice, to love. We fight against it; we fight to preserve ourselves and to mitigate risk. But eventually we must cave and fight for something else, and it is then that we finally decide that we are glad to be alive.
I write this truly as a note to myself. I speak generally, but I write “we” only in reference to myself and the reflection I am writing to. I feel it necessary to remind myself, us, that the life I live is one full of pleasantness and joy. I smile and I don’t know why. I receive gift upon gift each day through the presence of my friends, family, coworkers, and strangers. So I am pressed to catalog this not for need of convincing myself that these stated axioms are indeed true, but because it remains a dire choice to choose how to respond to the existence around us. We can find a reason to hate the world should we want to. We can also choose to love each step we take, love each time we meet the gaze of another, love each moment we can muster to live through. It is the more challenging option. I do not know why, but I know that it is. And that is why I feel I must write this to myself--because the acceptance of both the joy and the effort consumed in the process give me the strength I do not have to continue.
When you are young so much must be spoken so that you do not explode from all of the ideas inside you. You are learning so much, and the world is so big, and life is uncontainable. As you grow it remains important to speak, since change is not true until you have loosed it upon the world, screaming of all you now know that surely no one else has yet understood. But there is a point where the growths you have long loved and purposed become less about you and more about everything else; such that you no longer can derive meaning from newness. You learn that the greatest toil is waking each day knowing that there is no pull from this or that to accomplish that or this--it is all vapor, as Ecclesiastes says--and deciding that you will craft a fleeting and equally vaporous meaning for yourself for that day. It will not last. It cannot last. But it pleases you for that day, and maybe it keeps you from despair. You have, at least, been given that choice to make.
I continue to consider the loveliness of story. I think I have come to realize that the concept is why I ever began to write. Along with this idea (or maybe, within) are two particularly human reasons. The first I think is entirely selfish: I yearn to relish in each moment longer than a moment lasts. It is an impossible thing to do, but by collecting some small collection of evidence of any given experience or time or action I am able to contain that instance to come back to whenever. Which I rarely do, if ever; but it quells the great fear within me that I have lost that feeling or that thought--that me--forever. I will not feel it again or think it again, at least not in the same venerable and honest way that happens as a byproduct of us all struggling for air, but I have kept record that these things happened, that I existed then as I do now. And there is still much to be gained within the captured... new thoughts on the same subject arise from the new lens of a new me. I don’t think I lose anything by writing.
The second reason is also selfish, but perhaps not entirely so: I find a mysterious value in the telling of a story. It is something akin to the Swedish proverb, “A joy shared is double joy, a sorrow shared is half a sorrow”: that merely by offering yourself in whatever way you so choose, you create a bond that cannot be broken because it has already been given. It believes in the enrichment of everything through connection. I believe in it too. It is why I write to you here. There is a sanctity to knowing about another; because even in tall tales there is enough truth to see a reflection of yourself. We will learn, one way or another, through the mirror in each other. The pleasant and miraculous will shine back greater each time. The painful and grievous will grow dim. There is no hope for us if we are apart. So I will speak of my life and all that is in it, for both our sakes.
I had a nice little thing on stories written but I scrapped it. I don’t think it was all that good--I didn’t really write it with myself in mind. Not really in the spirit of this section.
But I do think that the idea of a story is very important to me. I think, for me personally, it gives a more structured view of purpose than I am able to find elsewhere. I find it comforting to think that growth happens with or without my active participation. Even if I feel I have wasted a day, I have still lived it. I cannot stop myself from proceeding on with life. And while I may not be adhering quite so literally to the Hero’s Journey, I am still learning and thinking and building on the things I have no choice but to see and hear and love. There is infinite grace in the heart of a story. The bad things happen for a reason, same as the good. The errors and pitfalls will no doubt, one day, lead to redemption and understanding. And how wonderful it is to be able to see someone else’s life through that lens! To know they are on a crash course towards an end same as you, to see each small moment of their life in the context of the journey they find themselves on. How can you find fault in their discourtesy when you know there has been such a fascinating journey to lead them to you and that you have now been added to that journey? That there is no doubt consequence for this interaction in both of your lives down that same road? Everything can be traced back to from any one thing. We are here to make things interesting--which we have already done, because we are already here.
I have been thinking often of the need for hope.
There is a rebel in each person--for hope is a defiance--that seeks to change the circumstances it finds itself in, for one reason or another. But it is always met with hesitation. Because within each of us there too is a small but convincing creature filled with fear. This creature’s greatest enemy is change. It will ask the rebel if the present situation is really bad enough that it outweighs the burden of accepting responsibility for the unknown. That is where we find ourselves in tension: wondering if freedom is really such a good thing. Such tension is healthy; it is a sign of the understanding that all things have weight. But what this creature within you cannot understand is that we are not solely responsible for the change we see. Time does not stop so that you may decide what is in your best interest. I believe it is there that hope must gain a foothold. There is an urgency to life. Hope feeds on this fluency--because at some point downstream, the river carves its own path away from divulgence. The rebel knows this; the creature does not. So it is important to listen to that rebel when it stands to fight. Even if it all falls apart, and you end up worse than before, you did something. And we only have a short time to do something.
“Still, there is no harm in waiting. Wait a few years until the war has died down and they are no longer hunting mages for conscription. You might suffer less that way.”
“Sir, I have not seen all that you have seen, nor done any of what you have done, but I do not think I can agree. There is harm in waiting. Lives may be spared by my hand. I am scared, for I do not know what awaits me beyond this life I have set apart for myself. I fear it could be my own death. But I am also scared that I will be rent from the inside out knowing that I was given a choice and I chose not to choose. Or that I chose what was most convenient for me, at the expense of an unknown cost. I cannot sit on the fence for such a decision as this. Surely it is the same feeling you had nine years ago. And you chose--that is why you are a hero.”
“I am no... I acted selfishly then. Perhaps it is why I no longer have the power to choose. I do not think you will find my further counsel helpful in this matter. I am a poor example, then and now. I wish you good luck and safety, here or in Freeholm.”
I find myself feeling as though I know less than before; as if I am experiencing a decline in understanding. My map seems to display a different terrain to what I see before me. Almost amnesic. But it is not grief-given; it is a wonder. There exists no confusion nor doubt... left only is an interest in seeing more and a desire to hold all things. I do not know what I need or why I need it, and yet it is always supplied. I have grown brave, bolder than I have ever been.
It is not my environment but me that is changed and still changing. I pray that understanding does return, that I can again identify myself as I used to. Growth is a terrifying thing, as God is. I am grateful, but tired. One always seems to move at a pace he is not accustomed for.
Some days I wonder if the whole world feels the same way that day. Like everyone got up and fell into the same mood. Usually it’s a gloominess. And I wonder how that happens--does it pass on from one person to the next? Or do we all arrive there on our own, because of the weather or just the general state of things? And, I wonder, if I were to decide to instead feel upbeat and rather pleased, would that change the mood of the rest of the world?
I took some off from writing. It didn’t feel like there was enough space for it. It is a great joy for me to spend time doing so, but sometimes such joys don’t feel appropriate. Ever since Mick died, there has felt a need for a pause--in the context of grief, it feels strange and improper to look towards hope. That does not mean that grief is hopeless... instead, that grief should be respected, greeted, and invited in at the appointed time. And so it has been in my life. Time needed to be afforded to reorder my world to the new state of things. I needed to clean my room, so to speak.
And now I feel as though my chores are completed. There will be more mourning, for both Mick and others, but I have opened the blinds. Today is bright, with a gentle breeze, and what leaves that are left still to fall to the curb are delicately colored in shades of orange and yellow that celebrate the year they have lived. It is a good time for a walk, to bind myself to the world once again. It is a good time to imagine the possibilities and certainties that matter.
Several weeks ago I wrote that I struggle most with routine tasks and the upkeep of my own life. Lately I have found severe comfort in these same things. I have come to realize that it is the daily practices that give the most respite when grief knocks. There will be times that I will need to step away from facing the looming giants that guard my soul’s path forward to find in myself the courage to face them, and it is the small checked boxes of a to-do list that allow me to do so. When I am toiling towards progress, these items feel tedious and distracting. But it is when I do not have the strength to fight that they are welcome to me; there is hope there, in the laundry and the dirty dishes and the vaccuum cleaner, waiting to be useful. Sometimes hope can be overwhelming to keep close by. Yet there will one day be need for it, and worth is measured not in days but over seasons.
The holidays are often a mess of miscommunications, botched plans, and unmet expectations that come with reuniting family that has grown used to living apart. It is a byproduct of the season--and although taxing, it is part of what brings the nostalgia and joy to the end of the year. It is what invites grace and forgiveness... and helps to highlight “What Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.” But it is still a toll that is from each of us as we gather. I annually leave Christmas morning with my family feeling gross and distorted--far from who I want to be on such a meaning-filled day. I get in my head about all the hiccups over the past week, dragging myself through the mud for not being an avatar of joy and thankfulness. Good grief!
Over the last several years I’ve founded a new personal tradition. On Christmas afternoon, I’ll bike down to the campus of the college I attended. It’s nearly empty, save for a few foreign families perusing the buildings on visits for their children. There is an art installation outside one of the newest buildings that is constructed of several mirrors at 45-degree angles. And each year, I just look at myself for a few seconds. It doesn’t take much. Something about the different perspectives, looking at myself from above and below, snaps me back into place. I’d even say I look better than usual. I’m reminded then that I am pleased with who I am, that it’s okay to abrade one another, that growth takes time; and each year I leave sure that that is what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.