300,000 beats

Currently listening to: "Fearless" by Low.



What... a day.

I can do so little lately and still feel exhausted. But I woke up to see the morning today, and I am thoroughly convinced that when I pull myself out of bed early enough to see the world awaken, my day will be better. Better? I don't know, actually. But more fulfilling, to say the least. It feels so nice to wake with the Earth, and then watch the it fall dark as it's time to lay to rest again. Bearing witness to the cycle of a day is a beautiful privilege. So now that the sky is black again, it is time for me to lay my head and let my subconscious go into its natural rise and fall, just like breath. However, the subconscious is an intimidating entity. You never know what it will throw at you. And you can't argue it.

Despite my contentedness this morning, I now lay in bed somewhat cynical. I am thinking of growing old, and this makes my heart feel funny.
I don't want to get old. I don't want to get gray hair and arthritis... And I just have this funny feeling that I'm totally going to get arthritis when I'm old. My great grandma had it, and she used to sit at the kitchen table and pound on her hand until it would lie flat. She would curse at it, call her cramped hands "sons uh bitches", and scold my grandpa when he would catch her in her frustration.


When I look back at the last 19 years of my life... What have I done? 19 years is a long time. Is there anything of significance that I have created? I suppose with the majority of the population, no one has. Or, it depends on the definition of significance we are choosing to use.

In this case, I am choosing to define significance as "the ripples that we create through life's course... the way we affect people, whether positively or negatively, through our actions, beliefs, and overall being." Something like that.
My ripples are microscopic in the grand scheme of...anything and everything. And thinking about the people we encounter throughout our journeys, most of them eventually become tiny specks on the time lines of our lives.
Just like in TV shows, people make guest appearances, stay awhile, make their impact, and then they just vanish...almost into thin air. Just like Cleveland in Family Guy. He is nothing but a memory to Peter and the gang, yet he is off living his own life with his family, having crazy, politically incorrect adventures elsewhere, with different people.
Does he ever think of Peter, Joe, or Quagmire? Or is he content with bidding them farewell, dismissing them as just a segment in his life; They are a chapter of his life's story that needs no editing or revisiting that will now sit on the shelf of his mind, collecting dust. He can take it down whenever he needs to, if he wants to. If he will ever allow himself to need to or want to.

Family Guy? Really?
Bye credibility. ANYWAY.

I don't want to end this on a raincloud of a note. I suppose the way I can turn this and make it positive is to look at what I can do to make my ripples reach farther. I will dwell upon this for a few days. Until then...

"What people somehow forgot to mention when we were children was that we need to make messes in order to find out who we are and why we're here." -Anne Lamott