We Feel Things.

Something that seems to have become more prevalent in social media posts, and in my own reflections and experiences –

Feelings. And how we deal with them.

Suddenly, it has become normal to admit that you’re not as ok as people expect you to be.

There is less pressure on people to offer advice and try to fix things. Because honestly, unless you have a vaccine for Covid-19, there’s nothing much anyone can do right now to fix things in the way we hope to have it fixed.

And to be honest, I’m actually really glad.

I’m not glad for all the suffering, pain, uncertainty and anxiety that is happening around the world right now. 

But I’m glad that the language of uncomfortable feelings and emotions are becoming more normalised and acceptable, especially in societies and cultures where such topics were once extremely taboo and stigmatised.

I’m glad that so many are speaking about how it’s ok to be not ok.

I’m glad that when I felt guilty for feeling safe and protected at home, I found comfort in friends who openly expressed the same feeling, letting me know that I’m not a monster.

I’m glad that there is an acknowledgement of the collective grief we are all experiencing and the support we are giving to help each other through it.

 

Who would have thought we’d live to see such strange times?

Remember This

Dear Self,

At this point in your life you are standing at a seemingly significant point in your journey. A point where you have plenty of memories to look back on, enough of life’s experiences to learn from, and a future potentially vast enough to look ahead to.

Remember this feeling.

Remember the contentment combined with restlessness, the mash of hope and worry, the mixture of excitement and reluctance.

Remember all these feelings, because they are all you.

They come from what you have experienced, and they will shape what you will experience.

Remember them, because they are unique and you’ll probably (hopefully) never get to experience anything like them again.

Remember them so that when you look back on your journey, another milestone distance later, you can pick out this point and period in your life, and smile. Because you have become better, stronger and braver for having embraced all these feelings at this point.

Breathe into them. Smile at them. Embrace them.

Remember this moment and smile.

(Everything is going to be alright.)

Love,
Your Self.

Just Another Lesson

Perhaps I need to get used to the idea

That  I don’t always need people to be pleased with me,

For me to be contented with myself.

I don’t always need to hear affirmation and praise,

For me to accept that I have done to the best of my ability.

I also need to understand that doing the right thing,

May not be the most popular thing,

And we will not always be able to please everyone.

A lesson as ageless as time, yet a trap I find myself constantly falling into, day after day.

And the lessons of life continue.

Norwegian Wood

I once wondered what is it about rain that makes people love it so much. Where did the romantic idea of sitting by a window, reading a book in silence, while the rain falls outside, soothing our souls with its falling rhythm, come from?

I found the answer in Norwegian Wood. Murakami has never failed me yet.

“When it’s raining like this,” said Naoko, “it feels as if we’re the only ones in the world. I wish it would just keep raining so that the three of us could stay together.”

And it dawned on me that perhaps the nature of rain does have an inert power to make us feel safe, to make us feel as if we’re  enveloped in a cocoon, which nothing could ever penetrate. As long as the rain keeps falling, time will stand still. We are safe.

And in our world of constant changes, in our world where so many of us have been hurt because we trusted wrongly, where so many of us have been disappointed by lack of stability, we yearn for the security of the rain, falling in the distance, wrapping us in an invisible cocoon. We yearn for it, even if we know it will not last forever.