So what do we do now?

Today morning I found myself wondering, am I a nihilist? Do I find life meaningless? Utterly unsalvageable?

Or is my inner system just utterly broken, and needs so much repair work for it to function? And for some reason this has reminded me of poets. The first poet was an editor friend of mine, who arguably had the best poetry collection I had seen.

And he used to tell me that people run away from their childhoods as kids, just to spend their whole adulthood reminiscing about it. By then I thought his ideas were influenced by the poets he read. Poets can be a sadistic bunch. Yet, they are truthful and lay things we would rather run away from, bare.

The second poet was a loved one. Who used to tell me that she would die at 30. And anyway, some of her favorite poets by then, had died at that age or before. By then, again, I thought that it’s in line with that profession that she so loved. Don’t remember the exact percentage, but I remember being shocked at how much more poets were to commit suicide compared to any other art profession. We are fast approaching 30, and by jove I hope she’s alive.

But the more I think of it, the more I wonder whether I should keep at it.

I’m not one to look for a deep purpose in life. Whether you believe in some really huge purpose, or whether you look back and wish you had gone through with that suicide, days come and go. Life comes in small tiny time capsules that pass and pass. Some are better than others. Some are boring. But most are just there.

Last week or the week before that, when listening to The Script’s “Wish you Could See Me Now” song, I shed tears at the younger me. Oh wish she could see me now. The sunsets I have seen. The books I have read. The moments I have had. But most importantly, the way I’m alive. I’m so alive inside there that it’s hurts.

But this morning while listening to that same song, it occurred to me that I struggle with certain goals, because they require me to put my skin in the game. They require me to give a damn. To care about that shot that I’m taking.

And isn’t that hard? For a long time I did what had to be done. Either to survive the pain or heal from it. And that’s mostly all I’ve known. Healing, growth, change etc. I have read books on trauma as if my life depended on it. I have tried to understand my system and the ways in which it has been shaped by the kind of life I’ve had.

But now I’m required to do a different thing. You see that life that I distrusted so much? I’m now required to dip my toes in it. To wade in it. To enter into it.

Logically, I know what’s required of me. And I know how to get there. And I hope that the universe comes through with its side of luck, as it has always done.

But in there, it feels as if I’m 12 all over again. At 12 is when I disassociated from life. Died.

And there is a skeleton in there that does not want to be resurrected. That is so used to it’s grave, that has found it’s comfort in that land that is beyond the living. It just wants to rest. Be not disturbed by living shenanigans.

But I have been a grave digger for as long as I could remember. When you spend so much time burying the precious parts of yourself, you end up acquiring the skills to dig them back up and breathe life into them. One at a time.

I guess this is catching me by surprise because for a while there, I thought I had dug up all skeletons. Therapy works. Determination to meet my authentic free self also really helped.

So what do we do now?