I don’t know how or when this happened.

Today I was at the neighborhood health food store purchasing toaster waffles and overpriced milk when I realized I belonged there. I never felt that way anywhere before. That isn’t to say it is the first time I have ever felt that way, I guess it was just the first time I realized it as it was happening.

Now the neighborhood health food store isn’t particularly a place I really want to belong, and it isn’t that I felt I belonged there anymore than anyone else. I guess all I am saying is that I didn’t feel like an outsider. I didn’t feel as though I were a fraud, or a ghost in a place where real live people live their life. I discovered that it is comfortable to belong. I felt the gift that this life really is.

I think as an adolescent I found myself constantly trying to fit some mold that I imagined would make me acceptable and lovable to the people I wanted to love me so much. Somewhere along the line I got rather hung up on the idea that I needed everyone to like me, even the people I tried so hard to pretend I hated. I got stuck in that state for a long time. As a result, I spent so much of my time trying to pretend my life was something other than what it really was; I missed out on a lot.

A friend of mine told me this summer that when he stopped trying to be cool, he became cool. So naturally I tried to be just like him for a few days. It didn’t work.

I used to think adulthood was the death of the heart. I saw these grown-ups so involved with the business of living, that I thought they had lost the capability of feeling. Of course this was because I imagined feeling was another word for experiencing pain or longing. I had all these ideas. I knew so much. I was so confident that everything I guessed at was a fact. I was wrong.

Adulthood has been the best part of my life so far. I am pretty new at it. I have learned a few things in the past decade or so however. I have learned the value of humility. I have learned that the most important things in life are the relationships with my family, and the true friends I have found in this life. I have learned that I am often wrong, and the quicker I am to accept that fact, the more I learn, and the more helpful I can be to the people I love. I have learned the value of using my mind more than my mouth, and the value of using my heart more than my brain.

My grandpa once taught me that one of the most valuable expressions he ever learned to say was “you may be right.” I believe now that is how he became probably the wisest man I have ever known. The more he learned about life, the more he was open to let other people have their beliefs and to learn what he could from them while being helpful all the time.

Today while in the neighborhood health food store, I realized that this is my life. I am not the center of the universe, nor am I absent. I get to live this life today not because of the choices I have made, but because of grace. My responsibility is to live this life to the fullest, to be present, and to experience every moment, and every situation as a part of this amazing thing we all share. I don’t know that I deserve all that I have, or all I have been given, but I am certainly going to make good use of it. I love my life, and all the people in it.

 

 

january song

What will the captain think?
Out on this road with the weeds
Blowin from one direction on home,
Wonder what will the captain think?

And where did that girl go now?
Running from nowhere
With a fist full of guilt
Tell me where did that girl go now.

Sometimes it gets hard to know.
Its hard to find normal leaning into the wind.
I don’t want to ask why I feel so alone,
I don’t want to remind you.

No I don’t want to remind you.

Who do they talk about now?
I pretended to resent
when they talked about me,
But I wonder, who do they talk about now?

How far is it to my home?
And where will I meet
The one who is waiting for me,
Tell me how far is it to my home?

Sometimes it gets hard to know.
Its hard to find normal leaning into the wind.
I don’t want to ask why I feel so alone,
I don’t want to remind you.

No I don’t want to remind you.

tonight

I lie here tonight halfway between loneliness and gratitude. This dissonance is much less amplified than the dissonance I lived in the past. Still….
I keep writing drafts, and I keep throwing them away. I guess that is because I don’t know the story yet. I don’t know where I want the protagonist to go. I am not quite sure who he is going to be yet.
I just don’t know what I want. Maybe that is because I have everything I need.

warm in here

It is still cold outside. For a moment I look out of a window and think about who is out there. Struggles are harder when the shivering won’t stop. It is so easy to be grateful as I sit in this warm room given to me out of sheer grace. I wonder how easy it would be to have that gratitude if my path had been harder. I don’t think I have that in me. I wonder how I would feel if my life weren’t wonderful. Would I be bitter? Would I want to blot it all out?
I don’t feel guilty; at least not usually. I definitely didn’t get what I have now out of hard work and honesty throughout my life, but I didn’t get it by taking it from anyone else too. Rather, by some fortune, I find I have everything I need, and almost everything I want. There is no answer to this. There is no solution, as it isn’t a problem. It just is.
Still, I sit here and look out into that gray cold, and I remember living there too. I remember putting myself there, and hating everyone else for it. I remember being invisible as I walked through store isles just trying to stay warm, or even to have a conversation with a real person, that is, someone not like me.
I want to give what I have today. I want to share this feeling of actual enjoyment of life. I am not sure I know how. And somehow in all this, I hurt a little. I sit here with the whole beautiful world, with everything I need, and all the best of friends… I am extremely happy, but I hurt a little for what I can’t give away.
I know that there will be pain. I know that every life has some static. There will be losses and tragedies in my future. I am not blind to the realities of life. I know that someday all of this will end, that this story has some kind of conclusion. I want to be there to perceive fully how it plays out. But for right now, I am just so happy to be alive. I am happy for it all. I just want everyone else to be too.

for you

Yes, this is for you. How could it not be? You take up the whole world for a second, and you block out the sun. But in a good way. And the way you walk down the street, with that confidence in each subtle movement? It is just grace, and a reason to wake up tomorrow.
I don’t really know how else to say it… so I should really just stop, but I want to tell you that you are noticed. You are not only the reason I walk an extra block past my car, but you stay with me all day. And while it is likely I will never talk to you, that you will never know my name, I will never forget you. You completely matter, even if I make you up.
This is for you. I am not lonely, and I am not quite crazy. I just can’t seem to shake you. You are behind my eyelids as I try to sleep, and you won’t even say hello in my dreams. But I can see you smile, and that is enough.
I don’t know who you are, and maybe that is better. Maybe it would be too much, or maybe the illusion would shatter. But still, I am so grateful for that brief glance; that trace of a smile. You give me just enough to think you like that I notice you. This is for you.