Tag: inspiration

Because even the happiest of people feel sad sometimes.

The burn on my lips, the taste of blood, the aching in my jaw, all are signs that I am trying, desperately, to overcome something inside of me that is gnawing at my liver, deflating my lungs, and lobotomizing my brain. 

Let me rephrase a bit. It’s the whisky that burns as it touches my mouth as I sip at it slowly. Bits of cheek and cracked lip are bitten off as I nervously fiddle in my seat. Tears, or screams, or some other unknown force inside me are trying to claw itself out of my throat, and I clench my jaw hard to keep it all in. 

If giving it a name would give me relief, I would call it something gallant, something powerful and awing. Because what it really is, the mix of anxiety, undiagnosed depression, and numbness of the mind just makes me feel pathetic and lame. But, that’s what the constant gnawing is, the boxer to my lungs, and the nail hammered in my head.

It’s really not that bad most of the time. Most of the time I am content, in the best definition of the word. But sometimes, I will get the rug that I’m standing on pulled out from under me and I’m left on my ass looking around wondering why I was standing on that fucking rug in the first place. Questioning things is something I think is important, but sometimes it’s the questions that hold me over the ledge of sanity. Conditioned insecurities run rampant in my mind’s revolving door. Why do I even have that door? 

Understanding that I, alone, cause the pain inside me is as easy as it is difficult. Yes, I see what I’m doing to myself with the unnecessary overthinking and worrying. But no, I don’t always feel like I want to take the blame. But, it is what I should do.  

Sometimes I want to sit in the puddle of shame that I create for myself because when I get cold I realize that I should maybe stand up and find dry land. Maybe, anxiety and depression are a good thing. Without them, where is the push to get out of that puddle? Hell, what if I never realized I’m standing in one? 

It does bring me relief, feeling love for my anxiety and depression. Giving them light, don’t get me wrong, hurts, but there’s also a pulse of healing that runs through me. I can feel it when I meditate. I literally can feel it expunge itself out of my stomach and up my throat and out of my eyes. It’s after the pain that I feel relief. I’ve let all the air out of my lungs, all the tears out of my eyes, and I have nothing left to do but take another breath. With that breath, I imagine my eye sockets sucking the overflowed tears back into me, down my nasal passage and into my throat. I swallow hard and enjoy the refreshment. 

Kobe

I’m not sure how I want to compose myself for this. Frankly, I don’t know what’s right. I wasn’t going to say anything publicly about this because I don’t know if I should, or what’s best. But, I feel compelled to write something, so that’s what I’m doing.

Yesterday Kobe Bryant died holding his baby girl. I break to write that sentence because the thought of it literally tugs my breath into my lungs and I can’t breathe. I didn’t know Kobe. I didn’t really watch him play basketball. He wasn’t on my radar until every media channel was flooded with his and Gianna’s, his 13-year-old daughter’s face. Yet, I still feel this deep loss that aches. Bluntly, something so horrible is pushed in front of our faces and we can’t take our eyes off of it because it is so horrible, so bizarre, and so real.

A superhero figure was taken down and the entire world shook. When I first heard the news, memories flooded my mind of playing basketball with my elementary students and hearing them yell “Kobe” as they shot each shot. Every single shot. I think about what the shake feels like to them.

I can’t even imagine what his family is going through, god I can’t even imagine. It hurts thinking about that.

When horrible things like this happen first we think about those involved, and then their family members and the people close to them. And then we turn it around into our own lives. We think about how we would feel if this happened to us or someone we know. We try to put ourselves in their shoes, I guess that’s a way we try to understand such a pain.

We see a perspective that we have been aware of in the past but now are forced to see it with a clarity that is so close to home. Life is short, and it’s not promised. All of us were slapped in the face with this reality when we heard the details of the helicopter crash. When we hear something so awful, we gasp, we take air into our lungs. It’s like we’re clinging onto the instinct to live. To feel. Bad things happen in the world every day. We forget this, and we even turn our heads away from it. But this, this snapped our heads back into place where they should be with a reality that is so true, so real. Right now we are living but we don’t know about any second further.

Sometimes I don’t know how to live each day as if it’s my last. Sometimes I don’t know how to cherish every moment and make sure everyone in my life knows that I love them. Sometimes I don’t know how to feel when shit like this happens so mainstream that it rips into every city in America. Sometimes I wonder if I should feel bad for crying for someone I never knew because I feel like I’m not worthy to cry for them, to feel something for them. But, my face contorts anyways and I’m just glad I’m alone while I write this. I don’t know how to relate when something like this happens.

But, for me, it feels natural to cry about this. It feels natural to hurt, to think about Kobe’s family. It feels natural to reflect upon my life and wonder if I’m doing what I should be doing. It feels natural for me to want to call up my people and tell them that I just love them.

As a humanity, we need to feel, we need to live. This horrible accident reminded us all of the importance of this. Hug your people. Love who you love. Try your fucking best and be who you want. Fill your days with what brings you joy. I wish this wasn’t the way we got our wake up call, but when something like this happens we should listen, fuck, we need to listen.