Choosing Is Enough

I'm not going to tell you it isn't your fault.

I'm not going to tell you there's no responsibility, and I'm not going to tell you it doesn't suck, because it does. I'm just going to say one thing. Maybe you don't have all the data. Maybe if we zoom out, there's a little more to what you've been seeing than you were ever able to see from where you're standing.

So trust me one more page.

Not the whole book. Not your whole life. One page. And maybe that one gets you to the next one. That's all this is. Life is moments and choices. It is not easy and it is not hard. It is both. The pain is wicked. And the joy can hurt too, because you already know how much it'll cost when it leaves.

And the bar moves.

Every time you reach it, something in you slides it higher and calls the thing you just did nothing. You met the standard. You matched it. And you threw the win away in the same breath, because you were trained to always want more. You are playing a game where the finish line steps back every time you touch it. You were never going to win it. It was built not to be won. That's not on you.

And the bar was never real.

It's an idea. A picture of what sounds good. Everyone at their best, all at once, all aligned. But this is life, and life is messy, and almost nothing aligns, because we are all strange and beautiful and all of us are chasing the same picture that no one has ever actually lived. You are drowning trying to reach a shore that was painted on.

I stopped fighting the water.

Here's what nobody tells you. The fighting is what's exhausting you. Not the water. The fighting. All that swimming toward somewhere solid, somewhere you'll finally have it figured out, somewhere dry where this stops. I swam like that for years. The place I was swimming to doesn't exist. My fear made it up because the water felt like too much.

I surrender to the sinking.

Surrender doesn't mean giving up. It means you stop spending everything you have on staying where you are. You let go and you go under and it feels like the end of something. It is. It's the end of pretending you were fine up there.

Everything comes up. Let it.

This is going to hurt and I'm not going to pretend it won't. When you stop fighting, all the things you were fighting to stay above start to surface. Memories. Words you said. Words said to you. Let them come. You're not sinking into your pain. You're sinking through it. There's a difference, and you'll only find out by going.

There are spots down here. Dark ones. Light ones.

One starts to play. A bad choice. An unkind act. Something you did. It plays whether you want it to or not, and as it plays it discolors, and the shame comes up through your whole body. Visceral. Real. Don't swim away from it. I know everything in you wants to. Stay.

You already know this one.

Watch what happens when the scene plays. You don't think that was wrong. You think I've been there. I know that one. We're quicker to recognize the bad than the good. Years of fighting ourselves trained us that way. But that recognition, the thing that's been hurting you, is exactly what gets you out.

Love the one in the scene first.

Not yourself. Not yet. Inward is too far right now. Look at whoever did the thing and let the I've-been-there soften you toward them. It's easier to be kind to someone else in the dark. So start there. That's allowed.

Now see that it's a mirror.

The one you just forgave. Look again. It's you. It was always you. And the little bit of kindness you spent on them a second ago, you can't take it back now. It's already out. Maybe I'm not that bad. That's it. That's the whole turn.

The spot lightens. A little.

Not all of it. A little. And your surroundings lighten a little with it, because that one was holding others in place.

It was me. And so many others.

I am not alone down here.

And the dark is not your enemy.

Sometimes you need the break. And sometimes it has to be dark enough for you to finally see the one spot that's playing. The one that's a catalyst. Clear that one, and so many others go bright with it.

The light will scare you too.

Not just the dark. When a spot goes bright, when a good moment actually comes, part of you will flinch. Because you already know how much it's going to hurt when it leaves. You've watched every good thing leave. So you brace. You hold it at arm's length so the losing won't cost as much.

Stay in it anyway.

I know what it costs. Stay anyway. The joy is allowed to hurt. Bracing doesn't save you from the losing, it just steals the moment while you still have it. You already paid for the leaving. You might as well have the thing you paid for.

You might feel it all click. And then lose it by morning.

That's not you failing. Change can feel instant, especially right after something breaks open in you. Like you finally get it, like it's done. And then the next day the feeling's gone and you think you were fooling yourself.

You weren't. The click was real. The click was just free.

The realization costs nothing. Keeping it is the actual work, and nobody warns you about that, so when the feeling fades you think you failed the test. You didn't. You just met the part nobody mentioned. You come back and you choose it again. Not because you feel it. Because you're willing to.

Celebrate the small things harder than the big ones.

I mean it. Harder. Because every big thing you'll ever do is made of a thousand small things nobody clapped for. The small ones are the whole structure. The big one is just the part that shows.

So some days you got out of bed. That's it. That's the day.

Fuck it. You chose it, and you did it, and it counts. Don't let that bar you can't even see tell you it wasn't enough. It was enough. You were enough. That's not a consolation prize. That's the actual thing.