‘Understand this if you understand nothing, it is a powerful thing to be seen’
~Freshwater. Akwaeke Emezi.
Today’s post looks like a page from my journal. As I write this, it’s 11:31p.m. I’ve been struggling with sleep for the last few days. I guess I’m a little anxious about my year. Thing is, every year on new year’s, I plan out my year. I set my goals and timelines and the things I want to achieve that year. I also create a vision board, I picture what I want to happen, I picture my plans in motion. This year however, I haven’t done that…six days in and I feel stuck already. I haven’t done any of that. I’m supposed to go back to school in a few days and I don’t want to go back there. And after thinking about all of this, I think I know why I feel this way. In the last two months of 2023, I had been thinking about something constantly. It’s still stuck on my mind actually.
Simultaneously, I had been reading this book ‘It Didn’t Start with You’ by Mark Wolynn. If this was a ‘books-to-read kind of post, this book would make it to my top ten. I didn’t finish it though. Anyway it’s a book that talks about how trauma is generational…we’ll get into that later. But first something he said really caught my attention. In the first chapter, he says that when treating patients in therapy, he pays a lot of attention to how the patients phrase words. This is really important, and before we get to why this is relevant to my story, I want to emphasize this. When you are thinking about something that really bothers you or hurts you, pay attention to how you talk about it. Don’t try to censor your words or think about what you’re saying…just speak.
The way you phrase what is happening to you is actually more important than the happening itself. Me, I was fixated on the past, I am fixated on the past. Someone will say or do something which sends me into this frenzy of fixating on thoughts and over-analyzing situations. As I was thinking about all this, there was something I kept saying, something I keep saying…‘I want the things I do to matter’. And when I said this for the first time, I felt a sense of relief because it felt like the truest thing I have ever said in my life. I felt relieved because it meant I’m being honest with myself. I want the things I do to matter. I say this because it feels like the things I have been doing haven’t. And I know that human beings like creating patterns to make sense of things and that sometimes, those patterns aren’t even patterns at all. But I keep thinking about specific things I have done in my life so far. For all of them, I keep drawing the same conclusion, that no matter how hard I work or how badly I want something, in the end, it doesn’t matter. I wish I could give more context, and if this was a podcast, I would. But it’s a post so we’re keeping it short so you don’t get bored and hit the exit button.
After thinking about this, naturally my next line of thought was, if nothing matters then what’s the point of this anyway. And by this I mean life. I also get this feeling that I’m definitely not the first person to ask this question. I wonder how many have. I wonder if you have. I know I’m not supposed to think about the past, but some days are better than others. “But really, all we want, and I speak for the entire human race here, is contact. Someone to let us know that we aren’t alone. That the world isn’t a dream and you and I really are happening at the same time even if it’s not in the same place…” This is from ‘I wrote this for you’ by Iain S Thomas. I am also starting to realize that this post is a little messy, everything is just everywhere, but it’s also 12:14 a.m… so I have plausible deniability (kind of). I love this quote, and this book.
This is what my entire post is based off of…you and I existing at the same time. I mean, if you think about it, we are thrown on this earth without a to-do list, without an instruction manual. We kind of just found ourselves here and are told ‘live’. And especially when you turn twenty upwards…that’s when you start living consciously. You start to think different, look different, question different. It’s when you start to realize that you are here. And if you are anything like me you start to wander what you’re actually doing here. You start to ask yourself if anything actually matters. My problem with this question is, there’s no in-between, there are only extreme opposites. If you say yes, that things do matter, that you matter then it means everything matters. All the choices you have made and all the ones you will ever make are part of something, some grand scheme. And that’s a lot of pressure to put on yourself. But if you say no, that none of it really matters, then what are we still doing here? That’s why this post is so important to me.
On some level, we need to validate each other’s existence. Other people are the lives to which ours is given meaning. I am here. And so are you. The grief you have felt, the joy, the love you continue to experience, the anxiety, the excitement, all of it is real because I have felt it too. The music I listen to and the trees I see and the movies I hate and the coffee I love, everything is real because you see it too. I know life gets so abstract sometimes. And I think everybody at some point in time has had a moment where you look around and just think ‘what even is this?’. So I want this post to be a reminder that you and I are happening at the same time. You are here. And so am I. So stay a while. Prove to me that I exist.