Comforting Night Vale

Taking space for yourself is not the same as pushing someone away.

My life, like all lives, is more of a list of I nevers than I haves. Because the world is bigger than we can reach. Not even if we spend our entire lives reaching. We clear a little circle around ourselves. We sit in that circle, and that is our life. But it’s OK. I don’t have to do everything. I will leave an endless list of the not dones and the meant tos and the should haves, and that’s fine.

Face the world. You have to make yourself vulnerable to harm to reap the rewards of living.

This will pass as all things will pass.

What do we live for, if not to make life less difficult for each other?

With love and science anything is possible.

I don’t have to keep trying. Remember that, I say to myself, as I keep trying.

What makes a person happy, if it doesn’t harm another person and doesn’t harm themselves, is ok. Even if it’s not how anyone else would want to live.

Happiness is not canceled out by unhappiness. A relationship is not canceled out by its end.

Taking space for yourself is not the same as pushing someone away.

Nothing is perfect, and I don’t think it will be, but it is better. Perfection doesn’t exist! All we can hope for is better.

Remember: you’re all right.

Life is only a narrative, but it’s a narrative we write together.

Remember, too, before you throw away an entire year, that any given unit of time also contains positive effects whose shape aren’t apparent yet. Because the universe doesn’t function in increments of human-made time, but on an unbroken plane of incidents and outcome.

Hold tight those you love, Night Vale. Not for fear of their loss, but for love of their presence.

As we get older, as we leave home, we form for ourselves an independent identity, no longer impressed upon by families. We take the last shape they crafted, a partially chiseled stone sculpture, and we are left to try to finish the work ourselves. Hopefully, they have provided good tools. Hopefully, the world teaches us how to better use them. And for the rest of our lives, we are gently hammering away at the curves and crevices of the great masterpieces that are our lives. Sometimes, as we work, we become less recognizable to the families who first shaped us. They critique the craftsmanship, the artistic direction, they worry too much has been cut away or that, quote, 'those arms just don’t look proportional.' In some cases, they no longer recognize us for the adults we are. Family expectations are high. But underneath it all, there’s love, and worry, and a knowledge that you will do right for yourself. Your family may not trust that knowledge, but they know they have to try.