At the end of my life, what will I remember?
Will it be what I think about now, the echoing distance of people from my life as its lived ever forward? What about those coming in? —their fresh eyes not holding me to my past selves, no old hurts held in hands I couldn’t quite see. Will they end the same, different?
The newness of any day requires the ending of the last one, the things held and said and felt rested and resigned. The page turned on what happened, to look to the next good thing coming, not afraid of another ending, yet ever aware of its possibility.
In any room I walk into there may be someone who loves me, fears me, is irritated by me, and even at times hates me. But here’s what I didn’t always know; in that same room there is also me: who at times loves me, fears me, is irritated by me, and yes, hates me.
I have waged a war with others when all the while I could have made peace with myself. Isn’t that what we all are searching for when we want someone to think better of us? That we feel better toward ourselves, that we become convinced of our own goodness by consensus.
Isn’t that also why we might be so tired?
I bought a sweatshirt a year or two ago that said ‘I am not for everyone’, and life has helped me to believe this to be true. The world is full of endless flavors and I wanted everyone to choose mine, to find my own goodness in others thoughts of me—now I know it just doesn’t work that way.
The freedom to hate a flavor is allowed to anyone who needs it. That is grace. That is love. And at the end of my life I will remember that.
blue solstice 