Maybe…

I was talking to three newly acquired friends at brunch the other day, and they asked me if I had made any New Year’s Resolutions. I told them that I don’t believe in them. They asked me if I had any goals.

I told them that, yes, there are things that I wish to do in my lifetime, creatively or otherwise, but that, for the moment, I don’t think that planning is a good idea. I told them that sometimes plans get in the way of what we could be experiencing in the day to day. We have to live for the moment and go with the flow. I hoped I didn’t sound too much like a hippie.

They told me that that sounded very Eastern and that they could appreciate that. But I’m not sure I even agree fully with my own sentiment. I think you have to find a happy medium in both worlds, or your life will fall apart.

Late night, and I’m having an emotional conversation with a friend. She asked me what the happiest moment of my life was. I told her I couldn’t remember. She asked me what the worst was. I couldn’t answer that either.

I told her I was tired. I’m tired of fighting, tired of the ups and downs. She told me to stop trying and fighting and just be. I’m not sure that’s the way the world works. I wish it did.

In the end, we decided that no one really truly knows one another.

I stopped taking the pills that are supposed to keep me from going crazy. They aren’t working. And part of me feels that if I’m going to feel, then I’m going to really feel. Can you embrace emotion and in the end transcend it?

Buddhist monks were able to light themselves on fire in protest of war and watch themselves burn to death because they learned this practice of being. They didn’t flinch. I respect them for this.

I’ll either experience peace or lose my mind in the meantime. Hopefully, it won’t come down to a burning, down or out.