it’s in lists that i find myself, lately, it’s there that i feel safe, and venturing beyond the very safe, the stuff of the everyday, well, there’s the challenge.

i know i’ve been detached, i know i’ve been behind a veil, i know i lost something and i never figured out what to do with the voids that were left behind and maybe i didn’t do the best job of filling them, but do we ever? i know i’ve had the thoughts that are supposed to make you worry. i know i’ve been hopeless, but i’ve also been hopeful.

in little moments, i get it. i get it, deeply. while i’m scrolling through a year’s worth of direct messages on twitter to find something, i realize how many people have expressed care for me. when a saturday comes together so perfectly, better than i ever could have planned, i realize i am loved and i am lucky. i had a whole emotional revolution in a span of fifteen minutes, so clearly that i felt, really, physically felt, my heart being pulled through a time tunnel. i felt it advancing and i marvelled at how it extended through all my nerves. i realized then that all is not lost, not for all of my tears, not for all of the days i can only resort to anger or silence or sadness.

there is always a pinpoint of hope. i don’t always see it.

if this isn’t nice, alana taught me.

i don’t know if i’m really okay. i stood outside a week or so ago and i explained that a certain percentage of the time i really am ok and a certain percentage i’m not, but it is a scale, of not being okay. sometimes i’m just a little removed. sometimes i’m an incapacitated mess. usually, it’s somewhere in between. and you know, i can handle it. i’ve learned to handle myself. i think of all the things that it’s important to do in life, this is pretty far up the list.

nothing is perfect and everything changes. nothing is perfect and everything, every single little thing, it changes. we learn lessons and we grieve and we celebrate and there is a whole plethora of things we do that are really pretty universal to humanity – we are not very different from each other. we are all warmed by the sun and we shiver under moonlight. we all want to be loved. we all want to be liked. we all struggle, we all fail, we all succeed, at something.

i am no different.