floryalfonso

About today

That I want to remember forever

Like how easily Avani grinned when I sought her attention

Like how much Anjali enjoyed the bright colors of her rainbow popsicle

Like how high Roddey was able to kick the giant bouncy ball up into the air repeatedly

How much laughter and joy resonated throughout the house all afternoon in just playing together and getting the space ready for the week.

How I don’t take a single moment of it for granted.

How precious time felt knowing Roddey is traveling for the rest of the week.

How excited I am to share the house with my sister and her family

How anxious I am for the girls to be good listeners

Feels like there’s an ad on top of another ad for everything lately. Layers to the promoted material. Individuals taking it upon themselves to recommend things out of the goodness of their own heart, sponsored ones who figured out how to monetize every word, people just genuinely into things and figuring out how to share their passion with the world and still make a little money.

I say all that to say it feels like every single interaction online lately feels like it’s someone trying to sell something. Whether it’s an experience, a new show to stream, a book to linger over, a local market to peruse. It’s really overwhelming in big doses.

They told me adamantly, “it’s true!”

That I wouldn’t know the depths of my love

And yes, education is really crucial to changing things. But even experts take breaks from focusing on only the bad. And social media is getting WAY too good at focusing on all the negativity. It’s clickbait so it’s easy, right? I just don’t want my perspectives shifted by infographics that aren’t fully contextualized constantly. From either side of the political spectrum. I’m disappointed with politicians in general, they all kind of just suck in their own way. The only consistently wonderful things in the news are the host and episodes of 1A, planet money and Up First imho.

loving someone/something/yourself is such a risk 

what a foolhardy thing to just put all faith and hope that this thing will turn out alright 

and when it does, how is every moment not a gift?

As I get older I’ve come to realize that depression can sink its claws into anyone. Anyone who acknowledges the fleeting nature of life and instead of moving on from the knowledge, is gripped by it. The ferocity of the grip depends on whatever else is happening in the moment. Whether it’s the enormous change that comes when reaching adulthood and realizing the ones you looked up to don’t have all the answers, whether it’s the time you realize it’s actually up to you to find the answers that could help a little, or when you’re responsible for a life outside of your own. The crushing weight of knowing another’s contentment is dependent on your own when you can’t remember a time you felt contentment deeply enough to prevent other feelings from creeping in to mar it.

Sometimes I think about a time in my past as the depression era. The time when I couldn’t make myself get out of bed. The time when I couldn’t figure out what the point of doing anything was. The time before Rocket. The time before Roddey. Now I realize pockets of depression can seep in anywhere. It can be the first thirty minutes of my day. The last hour of sunshine before we sit down to dinner. It can come and go and take as it pleases.

But I can’t and won’t think of it as a chained weight anymore. I want to believe I can progress no matter what. It’s not a phase to deal with. It’s a thing that exists but can be overcome. I’ve made strides in the past two years in a forward direction to that point.