A Moment Crashing
We are all, each of us, a moment crashing. Colliding with each other in ways we are never prepared for. Sometimes a crash is beautiful. Sometimes a crash destroys. We almost never know which crash we are in until the end.
Did you ever think we’d end up here?
You and me. In this moment, wherever you may be.
Have you ever looked around and realized you have no idea how you got there? It’s like when you drive home after a long day and your brain has no recollection of the journey. Your memory skips from the place you left to your driveway, everything between is empty. That’s how life seems to be playing out.
It continually catches me off guard.
I’m doing my best to live when suddenly I’m slapped in the face and all of the work I did starts to unravel right before my eyes. A week or two or six passes. The dust starts to settle. I look around, take in the aftermath, and set to work picking up the pieces. One by one I turn them in my hands, examine them, and try to arrange them in a way that seems to make sense.
I am halfway across the country watching someone I love lose someone they love. A kind and caring and funny man who means the world to my family.
I’m trying to be there for my friend from 1,300 miles away which feels impossible, and I’m trying to allow myself to feel my own feelings while not letting them get in the way. At the same time I’m experiencing a lot of change which has the tendency to make me feel exposed. I feel helpless and I wish I could do something, and I feel a loneliness more piercing than I can explain.
I was thinking about all of this as I was watching the sunset on a Monday and searching for an answer that made me feel better than the truth, so I wrote a letter about moments. I wanted to tell you that a moment is better than forever; that we are immensely lucky to have them. I wanted to believe that.
I published the letter on Tuesday morning and unpublished it a few hours later. Everything turned fragile. I received news I really didn’t want to hear. Waves of anxiety were washing over me. An emotional wound was sliced open. I didn’t believe a word I had written.
What’s the point of a moment when we could have forever?
That might be the truest thing I wrote in that letter—the question that started it all, not the answer I came up with.
Why would the universe give you moments just to take them away? What is the point of something if the inevitability is its end? Moments aren’t more beautiful because we can’t keep them.
Sometimes I hate hope.
Recently someone told me that my only vulnerability is hope. I laughed at the line, but I haven’t been able to get it out of my mind. It’s true that I tend to be cautious, and it’s true that I am somehow never cautious enough.
Lately I’ve been trying to trust that good things can happen. I don’t want to be a person who is always waiting to be proven right by misfortune. But it seems that every time I allow myself a bit of hope the universe rips it away, and here I am being proven right. Like life tricked me and I’m embarrassed I didn’t see it coming.
I feel it written all over me. Ruin.
I wake up heavy with it and all I can think about is how much longer I have to live with this before it starts to feel lighter. I live my life wondering how many strangers can see it when they look in my eyes. Am I doing a good job at hiding it from my friends?
I want to tell you exactly what is happening in my world without pretense. No tiptoeing around, no hints, but I can’t seem to do it. Maybe it’s something I understand is best kept secret. It’s a complicated thing—knowing that silence is sometimes the way to defend yourself. Still, I find myself wishing I could say it. I keep wondering if not saying it makes me dishonest. How much of my choice to be quiet is fear?
I’m a reserved person. It takes time for me to warm up to you. Ask my friends. I require a little patience. I don’t think this is always ideal. I tend to believe I’m difficult to love once you see my feelings, so I keep them close.
Most of the time I want to delete everything I’ve ever written. A few times in my life I have. I peel back a layer, reveal something, and immediately wish I could cover it back up. I am always hesitating. I hate the thought that I can do nothing about how you perceive me. Once you know whatever it is I decide to confess to you, you will be able to form an opinion about me that I will be unable to erase.
I’m thinking about safety.
How to feel safe in my body, in my mind, in my home, in this world.
There is so much in this life capable of derailing us. I would like to know how to prevent it from doing so. Not that I want to be impenetrable. I like being soft even if it makes me vulnerable, but I don’t think this means we shouldn’t also be safe. Do you think this is possible?
I’m not writing this because I have a solution. I only have questions. How do you feel safe? What do you do when you don’t? What about the times when you don’t feel safe, but know that you are?
My dreams are full of horrors I spend my waking hours assuring myself aren’t real, though I can never manage to fully convince myself of this. How do I stop waiting for the other shoe to drop? How do I stop living in this dreadful anticipation? How do I finally feel safe?
Where can I go?
Here’s a thing.
I am searching for a way to prove my past wrong. I am finding my way back to believing the best of people.
This is my practice—to seek the good.
Hope is messy. It requires that we get back up, and I know I will. But can I confess to you that I’d like life to be gentle with me? I’d like for someone to hug me, and when I try to let go I want them to simply hold me a little tighter, and I want to understand this means they love me.
I want to write about the peace I feel in this moment. I want to write about how every time I go to the beach to journal or read or write, I only end up watching the birds. I want to write about how an hour or two goes by before I realize this and smile at how empty my mind was, how quiet.
So I write this in the notes app on my phone in an attempt to remember, and I walk home to sit at my desk and diligently search for the right words.
Lately I’ve been sleeping 12 hours every night. Dreamless sleep. Apparently this is what happens when your body feels safe enough to relax.
Here are the right words:
We need a certain amount of safety in order to feel free.
It’s simple, really.
I want to believe in something again.
Life or the universe or love or art or me. I honestly don’t care at this point. Just something.
I celebrated a birthday recently, and I spent it with some of the warmest people this earth has ever known. For a moment at dinner the world fell away. And I was happy. And I noticed how beautiful love is, and support. And I felt the relief that comes from feeling protected.
Maybe this is something I can believe in.
You think you’ve felt the depths of loneliness, but there will always be another layer. To live with an open heart means your heart will forever break. Learning how to live within the duality of grief isn’t a choice we get to make. And maybe a moment can be beautiful but forever is still my preference.
I showed my nephew a photo of the sun setting over the Pacific once. His eyes grew wide and the most beautiful smile lit up his face. “The sun goes into the ocean?! So maybe if we just go swimming we’ll find the sun?”
This is hope.
To stand back up. Every time. Dust yourself off. Sift through the wreckage. Piece your life back together.
Go swimming in the depths for the sun.
You are a beautiful soul!!!