The Holy Mess of Living.

There was a time in my life in which I thought that happiness was the ultimate mode of being. That a day not spent in pure ecstasy was a day wasted. The books I read told me so. And I was young and silly enough to take all of those chants for pure happiness as an absolute truth and let it guide me to force this state of mind upon myself.

Until life played her little games with me by taking away things to which I had attached my entire soul. I tumbled into a pit of despair, which for me meant staying in my room for weeks to watch Californication and stuff my face with every single food I knew to be bad for me. (Emotional over-eating is, and will most likely always be, a thing for me.)

I no longer believe that chasing happiness is the penultimate way of life. Instead, I have fallen heavily for the idea of contrast. Unthinkable highs and intense lows. Really goddamned great and absolutely painful. Because that is what life turns out to be over and over again.

Almost two months ago I moved back to London, found a new way of living, new paths to follow, and things were good. Until life played yet another move and took away someone I loved so dearly that I now cannot even stand looking at his name, for I fear it will make me weep in foetal position for at least half an hour. And that’s okay. Because life cannot be a steady line. It is a tumultuous ocean, unpredictable and life-threatening often enough to make us anxious, yet so stunning at times that we are willing to forgive it for its sudden bouts of madness.

I don’t long for a life that is continuously happy. (I don’t think such a thing exists.) I crave a life that is full. Something that crosses the entire spectrum of experience, from deep lakes of resentment and agony and anger, to moments that are so full of love and beauty that they seem utterly surreal.

I want to be guided by the hand by Order as well as Chaos. To be dragged through the dirt and shown how to dance. I want to fall deeply for whatever comes onto my path. To invite it in, not knowing whether it will cause mayhem or exhilaration, but being really quite pleased with both. Because life is a tumultuous string of events anyway, so I feel we might as well give into it and let ourselves be swept from one end to the other.

Contrast, that is, & always will be, the thing.