“I’m not what's missing from your life now
I could never be the puzzle pieces
They say that god makes problems just to see what you can stand
Before you do as the devil pleases
And give up the thing you love
But no one deserves it.”
Elliott Smith
Stories are heavy burdens to carry. I don’t mean our own personal stories. Because no matter how heavy, each one of us is capable of carrying the weight, no matter how cumbersome our own histories may be, we know where to grab and how to find a firm grasp. We know how to adjust to the weight and which shoulder to let them rest on as we take tiny steps forward.
What is difficult to carry are the bundle of webbed stories- the ones that are connected and interconnected to everyone else’s woes and joys and memories. We sit in the darkness with the dim light and the sad music and we try to make sense of all the pain and anger and rage. Although our own weight might be light and easy to bare, we know that the heavy stories are just beyond our reach. We’ve seen them in the mirror or in our dreams or in our memories. We have created them in fiction and film and literature and in song and no matter how unbearable they feel, we know it is our human duty to carry them and pass them along and admire their gravitas.
Why do we hurt each other so much? How are we able to endure and inflict so much pain? How do we continue to live such painful stories when all we seek is joy?
I love you might be the heaviest story we desperately try to decipher. We pretend that love is simple although we have repeatedly proven that it is the most complex word that we can’t define.
Maybe every story is the attempt to simplify the complexity of love. And maybe this equation was never meant to be solved. So we write and struggle and sing and marry and divorce to try and make sense of this complicated chemical reaction. Sometimes it blows up in our faces, singeing our eyebrows, and sometimes it smokes and bubbles and creates a diamond. Whatever the result, we bask in the awe of it all.
People will always resent your joy and discredit your pain. They see you as either faking it or over dramatising it. Which is weird, seeing that they are carrying the same weight in their webbed and cumbersome stories.
I just want to say that I value your joy and believe in your pain and can help you carry and decode and make sense of both whenever you need it. If you promise to do the same for me.
…
I just had a quick chat with my mom on Facebook and she said, “Your existence is the most wonderful gift of life for me. I'm grateful. good night.” So that feels pretty good. You know- knowing that someone loves you that much.
…
I did a front flip on a trampoline today. I recorded it and have watched it in slow motion several times. Why? Because I did a front flip on a trampoline today and this makes me feel young and vibrant and brave and alive. I started the day watching Eddie Vedder in his youth jumping into wild receiving crowds. I remembered those days. I valued those days. I loved those days. I lived those days. So today, when I had a chance to be alone on a trampoline, I looked at my creeping fear and said fuck you. I flipped.
I assume that some day I will acquiesce and give into the fear and choose not to do the flip, but on this day I said yes. And it felt great.
I could never be the puzzle pieces
They say that god makes problems just to see what you can stand
Before you do as the devil pleases
And give up the thing you love
But no one deserves it.”
Elliott Smith
Stories are heavy burdens to carry. I don’t mean our own personal stories. Because no matter how heavy, each one of us is capable of carrying the weight, no matter how cumbersome our own histories may be, we know where to grab and how to find a firm grasp. We know how to adjust to the weight and which shoulder to let them rest on as we take tiny steps forward.
What is difficult to carry are the bundle of webbed stories- the ones that are connected and interconnected to everyone else’s woes and joys and memories. We sit in the darkness with the dim light and the sad music and we try to make sense of all the pain and anger and rage. Although our own weight might be light and easy to bare, we know that the heavy stories are just beyond our reach. We’ve seen them in the mirror or in our dreams or in our memories. We have created them in fiction and film and literature and in song and no matter how unbearable they feel, we know it is our human duty to carry them and pass them along and admire their gravitas.
Why do we hurt each other so much? How are we able to endure and inflict so much pain? How do we continue to live such painful stories when all we seek is joy?
I love you might be the heaviest story we desperately try to decipher. We pretend that love is simple although we have repeatedly proven that it is the most complex word that we can’t define.
Maybe every story is the attempt to simplify the complexity of love. And maybe this equation was never meant to be solved. So we write and struggle and sing and marry and divorce to try and make sense of this complicated chemical reaction. Sometimes it blows up in our faces, singeing our eyebrows, and sometimes it smokes and bubbles and creates a diamond. Whatever the result, we bask in the awe of it all.
People will always resent your joy and discredit your pain. They see you as either faking it or over dramatising it. Which is weird, seeing that they are carrying the same weight in their webbed and cumbersome stories.
I just want to say that I value your joy and believe in your pain and can help you carry and decode and make sense of both whenever you need it. If you promise to do the same for me.
…
I just had a quick chat with my mom on Facebook and she said, “Your existence is the most wonderful gift of life for me. I'm grateful. good night.” So that feels pretty good. You know- knowing that someone loves you that much.
…
I did a front flip on a trampoline today. I recorded it and have watched it in slow motion several times. Why? Because I did a front flip on a trampoline today and this makes me feel young and vibrant and brave and alive. I started the day watching Eddie Vedder in his youth jumping into wild receiving crowds. I remembered those days. I valued those days. I loved those days. I lived those days. So today, when I had a chance to be alone on a trampoline, I looked at my creeping fear and said fuck you. I flipped.
I assume that some day I will acquiesce and give into the fear and choose not to do the flip, but on this day I said yes. And it felt great.
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