The Good, the Bad and Enjoying the in Between

It’s amazing to me how many people call to check on you when you behead your ex-boyfriend in one of your poems (like you’ve never done that?)

As a writer, you draw on the sadness or the discontent because for many of us, writing is a way to get those negative emotions out of you.  No one wants that festering inside of them.  It’s important to remember that hurt, sadness and anger are all nothing more than a moment in time.  Once I put things down on paper I feel lighter.  It’s a meditative exercise in letting things go (even if you behead people in the process).  J 

We are all just moments in time and moments shift.  Each one is different and as such, we are different.  I am not my past; I’m far too present for that. 

I was watching a Louis C.K.  stand-up bit how we constantly expect good things to happen to us.  He jokes around about some guy who spills coffee on himself and how the guy’s reaction to this extreme anger and then this victimization like  "how could this have happened to me?!”  He goes on to discuss how it's absolutely ridiculous that we expect ONLY good things to happen and then freak out when the bad happens.

As a society, we have a tendency to EXPECT that only good things happen to us.  It’s natural of course, no one says, “I hope that I fall off my bike today.”  No one wakes up one morning thinking: “I hope I get into a shitty relationship.”  No one says, “I hope my friends all abandon me and I lose my youth and beauty and end up living alone with 20 cats.”

Instead we say, “It's going to be a gorgeous day and I'm going to bike along the lake to enjoy it."  We say, “I’m going to find the one and we’re going to be in love forever and it’s going to be amazing.” We toast to all of our fine friends, “To our splendid future!  Friends forever!”

When things don’t go our way it’s devastating for many of us.  Yet, I wager we wouldn’t be half as happy with the good times without the bad.  How would we even recognize the difference?   Would we be as strong as we are without having to struggle?  Would we appreciate the times when we are able to relax and let it all go if there weren’t points where our muscles were tense and sore from carrying too much on our shoulders?

All moments should be taken in stride from the joyfulness to love to heartbreak to depression because for better or for worse, it’s a moment and it will be over before you know it.

<3