To be alive
247/300. And yes, it is life.
To be alive is not to be happy. That’s the first lie we were sold.
We thought being alive meant smiling, winning, achieving. We thought it was supposed to look like a highlight reel. But to be alive is much quieter and even much stranger.
In the past couple of weeks, I’ve drowned, floated, drowned and flapped around and swam and drowned. And I think I can tell you for a fact that been alive isn’t always pink.
It can be pink and white and white and brown ad gray and black and lemon and orange.
To be alive is to wake up with a heavy head and still make a hot cup of coffee.
To check your phone and put it down again.
To die every 2 days per week.
To miss someone who doesn’t miss you.
To feel the sun hit your skin at 4 p.m. and, for a second, forgive everything.
To drown, almost swim to shore, and drown again.
To say you will do something yet fail yourself.
To be your biggest sabotage.
It is not always beautiful. Sometimes being alive is terribly horrible.
And horribly terrible.
Sometimes it’s just maintenance. Brushing your teeth. Paying bills. Saying "I’m fine." Doing the thing you said you’d do even though you don’t particularly want to do anything at all.
And then—
A stranger holds the door open for you.
You laugh so hard water comes out of your nose.
You see something beautiful on your way somewhere you don’t even want to go.
Someone uses a cliche but welcomed line on you.
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Love finds you in the randomest of places.
You read a line that catches you at exactly the right moment.
Maybe that’s what being alive is. Being both.
Under water and breathing fine.
Crazy and out of your mind.
Broken and functioning.
Missing someone and still laughing at a stupid joke.
Having a terrible day and noticing that the sky looks particularly good.
But we keep waiting for the moment we will finally feel alive. As if it will be loud. As if there will be fireworks. As if someone will tap us on the shoulder and announce, “Congratulations. This is it.”
But maybe it won’t. Maybe it never will. Maybe it will always be the two sides of the coin. Maybe it will be much smaller than that. Maybe it will be colorless the type we want to quickly scale through.
But it could also be in that very moment, the one you’re trying to rush though.
The one where your coffee gets cold.
Where your head cannot stay under water.
Where you move aimlessly.
The person you haven’t replied to.
The social anxiety even with your messages.
The cool breeze through the window.
The beautiful cloud shaped in the form of a unicorn.
Your body meeting the demands of your destiny even when you can’t see the destiny anymore.
You’re not waiting to live. Stop waiting to live. You are living.
Even now... Especially now.
Are you enjoying every second of it? maybe not, maybe you will not.
But you have to see it. Open your eyes and see it.
To be alive is not one big, extraordinary thing. It’s a thousand tiny things happening so quietly that you almost miss them.
