A Discourse on the Downside

Everyone wants to experience this miraculous epiphany that magically fixes all of their problems and creates the life they always dreamed of. Maybe some people get that, maybe they have a fairy godmother who can bippity boppity boo the dark nights of their soul. But maybe that idea is not real, and we’ve all been tricked to believe that buying the flower planners and the “How to Girl Boss” books will truly make our lives encapsulate every detail of our wildest fantasies. These tools are nice aids, but they alone do not have the power to proliferate the satisfaction one has with their life.

I honestly don’t know what theme I am trying to teach or story to share. I have this dear dilemma of mine, that I write in my head, in hopes of remembering my Pulitzer Prize winning words. But what makes my premeditated paragraphs such a dilemma is that they never sound as good on paper.

I truly think that the change of path that people take, the shift in their lives, happens because of tragedy. The only thing powerful enough to truly rock our world is pain and maybe love, but love is pain and pain is love. We feel pain when love is taken away and we feel love when pain is temporarily subdued.

I have come to learn this in my life not through other people but circumstantially. I cannot blame other people for anything that got me to this point in my life. Chronologically, I probably could point some fingers but that isn’t healthy. And nothing good will come out of pointing that finger at the mirror.

I have suffered from a pain that many will never experience, and most do not consider to be real. There’s no proof of my functional and not structural injuries, but it has left its mark on me. It controls the operating switch of my life. Everyone says, carpe diem, to seize the day, but I don’t have the same 24 hours that everyone else does. The switch flickers with the firing of certain neurons, and all of my power, gone in an instant. Every negative flick of the switch is painful, shutting down everything inside and around me. It sucks-this paralyzing pain only pressures me to use every precious second wisely before it perishes. It could have made me angry and as a human being, I will always possess anger. The never ending sporadic darkness illuminated a pristine path to pursue.

What is this professed path? Is it one of those enchanting epiphanies that has brought me to this point? Hell no, it was gut wrenching pain or maybe a love for what I once had. Whatever amount of time I have in these never ending 24 hours, I want to enjoy it. Instead of being angry about the switch turning off, I need to be grateful for all the time it is turned on. I possess anger, but I will not let it control my emotional state. When I pause, the rest of the world doesn’t. I am still and filled with feelings while the world is revolving and sadly it won’t stop when I do; nor can I flick that switch. Trust me, my rough calloused fighting hands have tried to oppose the frozen stiff unbudging switch with forceful flicks. But I have a life to live just like everyone else filled with the same potential for happiness, love and fulfillment: the true components of success.

I don’t have to let my life feel unfinished or incomplete, my circuit is able to be complete too. This newfound empowerment pumping through my veins is electrifying, even during the frightening outages. As controlling as adversity can be, it does not have absolute power over me. Just because I, like oh so many of us, hell, all of us, are in a time deficit, does not mean we are in a life deficit. Things are harder but not impossible. Challenges do not destroy our dreams and aspirations, they simply force us to re-strategize.

24 hour epiphanies aren’t an affordable luxury and certainly aren’t sustainable. It’s tacky to say the time that I do have is a gift or that “the present is a present.” But every second is filled with the same potential, regardless of who possesses it. The thirty minutes I spend enviously doom scrolling or self conscious about the nontraditional paths my life trail blazes before an episode could also be spent doing something gratifying or manifesting the limitless opportunities that are possible for all people; people like us, people like me.

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Our problems and challenges will never be magically fixed with the flick of a switch and the flash of a fairy godmother’s wand won’t magically encompass our lives with everything we have ever dreamt of. The barriers that make life a little harder for us are truly blessings in disguise. We know the harsh reality of the quality and meaning of our lives to change impermanently in the matter of seconds. These seconds of pain created the chance to pursue the lifetime of dreams that were always pushed to the backburner. I, like many of us, do not have 24 hours in a day, paralyzing pain can strike at any moment, so the time we do have is oh so precious. Instead of bitterly asking for more time, or greedily borrowing, appreciate the time that is tangible and ours.

Grabbing the pen and paper and allowing those rough and calloused hands to craft this love letter to the path less traveled is a testament to the pain I have endured and the wisdom it has brought me. This story isn’t a talisman to erect a generation of dream catchers, but simply a reminder that every one of us are human and shouldn’t expect one flowery planner or girl boss book to propel the force of change, only pain and love are capable of doing that. The change everyone wants to experience is not some euphoric rush of energy, it is honoring the little part of your mind that writes Pulitzer prize winning words and recording the premeditated paragraphs. As painful as this life is, I love every second of it and even if I could change it, I wouldn't do that for the world.

Maybe I am just a nonsensical girl trying to make sense of a tragedy I thought I would never experience and a prayer I thought would never be answered. The years in my life may have decreased, but maybe miraculously or magically the life in my years exponentially increased.

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Time is ticking, why spend it doing anything that doesn’t fill your flaming beautiful soul?