I’ve been thinking a lot about the quote, “Everything is beautiful and I am so sad” from Mark Nepo’s Adrift.
I truly get full body (and soul) chills reading this. There is no better representation of how I see life. I see tragedy and shame, abuse, oppression, devastation, extinction. I see roadkill, and I think, this world is truly cruel. But then I hear an echo of laughter, I see the waves of the ocean, I see womanhood putting on the warm coat of sisterhood. I see a person resting their head on a lover, I watch the sun sprawl itself onto my clean bed, and I think, life is truly magical.
Sometimes I wonder if instead of the spectrum “everything is beautiful and I am so sad”, maybe there are simply two sides: life is so magical, but the world is so cruel.
However, I try to stop myself from thinking this world is evil. Because I am not evil, and I am here. I am slowly losing this faith, but I intend to stay good so that I never give up on the world completely. **Though I also hold space for the very real spiraling thoughts about the endless problems in the world with solutions bigger than me sometimes. My worries are valid. We will get better. Everything is beautiful and I am so sad.
I also consider the inherent deceitfulness of the word ‘but’. I have grown to try to replace the word ‘but’ with the word ‘and’ whenever I can. I used to think, I love my life, but it’s so hard sometimes. Now I try to say, I love my life, and, it’s so hard sometimes. Two things can exist at the same time (revolutionary discovery I had one day). You can live in polarity. Most of the time these labeling contradictions were made up and you were conditioned to submit to their ideas without asking why. Without being curious!
So, I ask, does life being hard stop you from loving yours? Or have you been conditioned to see things as this OR that, so you could not find peace? Replace all your OR’s with AND’s. I find that peace commonly rests between two seemingly different things. Yes, life is hard. Some days I think life straight up sucks. And, I love it. I think it is the most magical and overly normalized experience in the world. I am grateful for every color, every step, every branch, and every morning.
You do not have to limit yourself to good or bad. You do not have to be happy or sad. Most things are not black or white.
Expand your mind. Ask why until the answer is; because I’m scared. Then hold hands with each side of you, and meet peace in the middle.