I FORGET THAT I AM ALIVE | 4
I never feel as though my life is ever ātogetherā āenough.ā
One day, it feels like itās crumbling to pieces--an eroded monument of the greatness that once was.
The next, I am in awe, staring at the sun on the rippling waves, exhaling with the effervescent shore.
I donāt feel complete yet.
Now, I just wanted to document a day where I lived despite my incompleteness.
Yesterday I wept, today I sighed by the sea.
Your sun will rise tomorrow, too.
The tide was the lowest I've ever seen at Clearwater. I was shivering in the soft water. The sea was cold, like when the shower's run out of warmth. I kept waiting for it to heat up under the rays of the sun, but it was cloudy. It was also windy, and a storm was slowly consuming the horizon.
It felt like August arrived like a paradox; thereās some meaning that life is handing over to you but itās not overt. You have to unscramble it.
Told myself: āIf youāre gonna be depressed and sulky, you might as well have the shore be your bed.ā
It was surprisingly pleasant.
The sea had little-to-no expectations from me. I simply got to be, as I was, in that moment. Nothing more. Nothing less. And in the hug of the crystalline-green waves, I imagined the dissolution of the painful self into the ancient, all-knowing immensity of the seas. Pacific, Atlantic, Artic, Indian... all connected, like that one quote from Simon Van Booy.
ļøµļøµļøµ ą¹ ā” ą¹ ļøµļøµļøµ
There are losely formed but interconnected concepts in my head lately...things I'm healing through.
Self-awareness isn't enough. It never fixes anything in itself. We need to couple it with strategy and experimentation to find solutions.
šā.Ė ERP (exposure and response prevention) for learning to ground mental compulsions, learning to tolerate uncertainty.
I tend to flip things over and over in my head looking for the absolute truth only to find new questions--after a while, it stops being productive or healthy.
I can survive uncertainty. I do not need to solve ambiguity. I can start using words like "maybe" and "might" with surrender. That is a tender and self-forgiving way for me to live by.
šā.Ė Crazing ceramic as a physical representation of what growing pains are.
My ceramic mug starting making clicking noises as I drank tea. It was the sort of sound that is quiet enough you could ignore it...but persistent enough that it starts to drive you mad. Kind of like the ticking of a clock on your nightstand.
I looked under my desk, flipped over books and papers, investigated the nearest window, in search of the source.
Stupefied, I held the mug to my ear and heard the clicking amplify inside the hot tea. My mug was clicking to me. A major WTF moment.
A Google search later, and now I know that ceramic undergoes a process called "crazing."
Apparently glazed pottery or ceramics have a fine network, or web, of microscopic cracks on the surface...picture cracked skin or the cracked webbing of a desert plane.
There is symbolism to this: visual record of survival, thermal stress, adaptation and continuation. Like kintsugi, the crazing reminds us that our history and character is etched into our surface through strain, pressure and experience.
We are not left untouched and pristine.
Notice how the ceramic did not crumble or undergo destruction. Despite the microscopic cracks and whispered aches of the mug.
An object or a person can expand, contract, evolve, morph, withstand unspoken and unmeasured pressure without falling apart.
šā.Ė low tides mirror an introspection, a time of rest, quiet pause.
Conserving energy. Letting go of old assumptions. Underlying truths and unresolved emotions come out to be processed and integrated like the scattered shells and stones on the sand dunes/flats.
What is the science for low tides?
My familiarity with the moon's gravitational pull on the tides is superficial.
Life lesson ### (what number are we at by this point??)
No one's ever going to hand you your full-package, comprehensive, complimentary life on a random date, or once you reach a certain age.
Start building the life you know you want.
closing thoughts:
What's the BEST that could happen??
