love the wang

Sometimes it takes other people’s pain to remind you that yours isn’t as malignant as you imagined.

I worked for four hours this morning counting every single bottle in the bar, and than I had nothing to do. Nothing. No laundry, no dishes, no cleaning, no errands, absolutely nothing. So I did what I did best: over-think, freak out and have a mid-life crisis all in my own head.

I started to feel pity about how hard I thought life was; how I’m growing apart from my friends, how I’m misunderstood, how my career is going nowhere, how my romantic life sucks ass, how nobody REALLY knows the hardships I’ve been through. I thought myself into a depression, and instead of taking hold of the beautiful sunny day and going out to enjoy life, I thought myself into an afternoon of self-diagnosed depression bed rest.

Thing is, through michelle, twitter and mooshinindy (one of my favorite blogs, and one that inspires me to pick up the camera once more,) I found websites that reminded me that human life is greater than the small hurdles I’m fumbling over. (especially since my hurdles are emotional and not a result of actual incidents.)

Reading these websites served as a reminder that the variation of grief and sadness in life can encompass the everyday, but sadness brings beauty in the things it contrasts. More importantly, to look around at what good fortunes already exists in life that I am overlooking. I am not a mother or a wife or a sister, but I am a friend and a daughter and I observe and learn from their grief in the way I can relate. Phillip Toledan reminded me that we can embrace the sadness, but I must remember to celebrate the infuriating but silly things that make me laugh; to cherish my parents, because they are the only real family I have. MooshinIndy reminded me that life is precious; that friendships run thick, and if my world should crumble, I must have faith that my friends will be there with bricks to help me rebuild. David Foster Wallace reminded me that, well, I have to quote him because his words are as important as the message: “learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed.”

All three of those reminders dealt with death in one way or another: Toledan’s parents passed, MooshinIndy’s BFF lost her toddler daughter and David Foster Wallace took his own life last fall. My father used to always say, “the minute you are born, you start dying.” I’m sure it wasn’t his quote, but he’s just always the one I attribute it to. I am who I am: stubborn, tough-loving and an over-thinker, but I’m reminded today that wallowing in the things that I cannot change does not give my life more meaning, but on the contrary, wastes precious time. It doesn’t mean I’ll stop having self-induced crisis’ but it does mean today, I remembered not to let it consume me.   

Life is a marathon that I sometimes wonder why I’m running, until I realize I’m lucky enough to have a chance to get to the finish line.