Sunday, January 22, 2012

Sometimes


Sometimes, life isn't how you like it. Life doesn't cooperate. Life doesn't do what you'd like it to do.
This is life, uncompromising, unwilling to shift to your high demands, incapable of bending to your will.
Life is that foggy cool morning when you lock the keys in your car and you curse as loud as you can, somehow hoping that the heavens will hear the insistent whine of your profanity and lend a hand. The heavens are deaf and life isn't fair.
And the day doesn't get any better because after paying a locksmith about $50 to unlock your car door, your computer gives you endless grief and the work phone is acting up and you wish the day would end already. Oh, it's Monday, by the way. And did I mention that the weather is miserable.
You take a moment in all of the frustrations building up inside you. You take a moment because you know if you don't, you'll scream and say that nasty thing you have wanted to say to that person you can't stand and this is the exact vulnerable time you're more apt to say that thing instead of keeping your mouth shut and your toxic thoughts from leaking out.
You take a moment because sometimes this life will beat you so that you want to throw a punch. Pound life senseless. Do your best Mike Tyson impression on the shitty day you've had so far.
You take a moment because you realize that life is longer and broader than this moment when everything seems aimed against you, when you feel God himself has decided that this is the day he will transform you into the 21st-century Job.
You take a moment because at this moment it ain't that serious. It never was. This is life and sometimes, life can suck the light out of you. Life can bend you so far you feel like you might break.
You take a moment to listen to the beating of your heart, feel the cold air prickling your skin and watch the greyness of the fog appear to hug the buildings in the downtown skyline.
Life isn't some puppet you pull the strings on. Life isn't some toy you toss around. Life isn't a game that you try to win.
Life is that thing you live as best as you can, pushing past the bad times knowing that the good times are around the corner, that the joy is contained in the small moments.
Life is the rain of cars breaking down and supervisors pissing you off and disease ravishing your body and the prospect of death coming to claim you or loved ones. But life also is the sunshine in the face-to-face conversation with an old friend or the unexpected new friend you just made, the hard laughter that feels like your stomach is caving in, the exhilaration of dancing to the music of your own rapidly-beating heart. Life is the first second of the first moment that you realized you fell in love.
Life is in the living. And sometimes you just have to dive in knowing you don't always have to be in control.