Happy Thoughts

“To be in your children’s memories tomorrow, You have to be in their lives today.”

Meditation did not relieve me of my anxiety so much as flesh it out. It took my anxious response to the world, about which I felt a lot of confusion and shame, and let me understand it more completely. Perhaps the best way to phrase it is to say that meditation showed me that the other side of anxiety is desire. They exist in relationship to each other, not independently

My whole life I’ve been telling myself: “don’t be afraid.” And it is only now that I’m realizing how stupid that is. Don’t be afraid. Like saying: “don’t move out of the way when someone tries to punch you” or “don’t flinch at the heat of a fire” or “don’t blink.” Don’t be human. I’m afraid. And you’re afraid and we’re all always going to be afraid. Because that’s the point. What I should be telling myself is: “be afraid, but do it anyway. Live anyway.”

I’m sad, but at the same time I’m really happy that something could make me feel that sad. It’s like, it makes me feel alive, you know? It makes me feel human. And the only way I could feel this sad now is if I felt something really good before. So I have to take the bad with the good, so I guess what I’m feeling is like a, beautiful sadness. I guess that sounds stupid.