31st
Wake up, the sun is rising without you.
At 5:11 AM my eyes open to a ceiling as dark as the sky. I’m half asleep and half awake, but there’s a sickness in my stomach that reaches all the way down to through the bed and to the floor. It’s that feeling again. That one.
Like any other sentient being with the intellectual capacity to understand a fragment of the horrible stuff that goes on in the world, it’s hard not to feel sometimes like the easiest thing to do is to just give up. To stay in bed and just forget about it all. Your dreams, your girlfriend, your grocery list, everything you cling to that’s not really there. And for me, sleep is escape. Sometimes it’s a good type of escape, but it’s an escape nonetheless. Real life takes place outside the sheets, and I have to remind myself of that on days like this.
But today, brooding over my cup of black tea before I start my zazen, I have started to feel that no matter how shitty things get, and no matter if your prospects are flickering out like a dim lightbulb, there is always another day that is beautiful in its own sake. I realize how corny and cliche that sounds, but right now it seems amazingly true. I’m surprised how long it took me to be able to just let a morning be a morning, and not worry about all of the superficial things that would bother me otherwise.
Sure, some of my relationships are going down the drain—slipping through my fingers just like I promised they wouldn’t, just like we both promised they wouldn’t—and turning into memories before they’ve even had the chance to really exist. I’m not sure if life is supposed to feel like you’re watching a rerun of something that hasn’t happened before, but sometimes it does.
The best thing one can do, I guess, is just get out of bed. Open the window, let the sun in, and move. Yogi Berra got it right: This ain’t over till it’s over. And today has just started.
