Discovered In The Void

To say "it's been so long" seems obvious and unnecessary, and so I won't. It's not what I want to write about anyway. My journal is filled with this blog's missing months and eventually I will fill in the gaps. Or perhaps not. Perhaps the void is exactly as it should be.

What I have discovered so far is that dwelling on the empty spaces is pointless. What I mean is, life continues on. The empty space ahead inevitably becomes filled and the empty space behind has already come and gone. The surrounding emptiness is an illusion created by the internal emptiness which it turns out, is an illusion created by self doubt. We are never as shallow or hollow as we may feel. Those empty spaces inside our hearts are simply opportunities for love.

I'll admit that I've forgotten this more than once in my life. It's easy to concentrate on what's missing instead of what's already there. I spend so much time trying to better my existence that I often forget to accept it as it is. I spend so much time dreaming that I forget to wake up. I spend so much time trying to feel alive that I forget I'm already living. This is it. Right now. Every breath that I take is another second of my life, ebbing and flowing into the next. And that's all life needs to be sometimes, just the coming and going of breathing. Sometimes that's enough to be grateful for. Why shouldn't it be?

It is a part of me to always notice the little things, but slowly I am remembering how to really see them, how to feel them, how to fill the mirage of my heart's empty space with them until there is not an ounce of room left barren. Even now I am collecting as I sit on my porch inhaling the sweet scent of the impending storm, listening to the neighborhood dogs announce it's arrival, feeling the soft winds rise and fall with my chest as I breathe. My lungs fill with the miracle that is air, that is life. My heart fills with these seconds, with this gladness.

What I have discovered so far is that every one of us are both ordinary and extraordinary all at once. Life can be whatever we want it to be, but life is also already magnificent just as it is. Life is already happening. We are already participating whether we realize it or not. What I mean is, realize it. Cherish each breath. Smell. Taste. Listen. Hear. Touch. See. There are no empty spaces. Beauty is everywhere.

It is easy to feel trapped by relationships, by money, by work, by responsibility. It is easy to feel stuck in life, but I think we trap ourselves more than life traps us. There are always choices to be made - perhaps not easy ones, or even right and wrong ones, but choices nonetheless. We aren't ever really stuck as much as we are unwilling to move. There's a difference. There are ways to improve - grand gestures that forever change the course of things, but also small, seemingly insignificant decisions that cultivate our very existence. Stop and stare at the moon. Hug someone before they need to ask for it. Refuse an umbrella and get soaked in a storm, as I did this morning, as I am better for having done.

The point is, I have written over and over that I'm making the choice to live, that I'm participating in my life, that I want to be alive. But that choice has already been made for me. I continue to breathe whether I am out changing the world or hiding away from it. Life continues on. What I have discovered so far is that no matter what I want the future to hold, no matter how I wish to change the past, my life is just as it should be. I am just as I should be in it. And it is beautiful.