What We Stay Alive For

We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for. 

-- Dead Poets Society

Sometimes, as much as I try to be optimistic, I have to admit something: it can hurt to live. It's not the kind of pain where you wish you were dead. It's more that quiet, dull sort of tiredness--the one where you're just tired of living. You don't want your life to stop, but you're exhausted from the daily grind, the pain you feel, and what life is putting you through today.

I know, I've been there. It's been that way off and on for a little while now. And let's be honest: it sucks.

Sometimes, though, it helps to remember the bright things in life, the ones that make life worth living. Just tiny bright spots of sunlight speckled across the fabric of daily living. like sunlight streaming through the window onto a blanket. Here's my list of those things. They're as much for me as they are for you.

sunsets & sunrises

a baby's laugh

raspberries

the feeling of being hugged

that moment when you're listening to music and your heart swells

blue skies and gorgeous sunsets (i know, i have a thing for them)

taking pictures and writing about them

writing, in general

keeping a journal, no matter how messy or perfect it is
getting your seriously painful wisdom teeth out (finally) 
(i had to mention that)

watching TV shows

laughing your head off at Parks and Rec
new, unexpected, fancier DVRs

eating watermelon

drinking lemon water

reading a good book that sweeps you away

good friends & family

typewriter font
runaway, faraway drives

the feeling of coming home

You'll need coffee shops and sunsets and road trips. Airplanes and passports and new songs and old songs, but people more than anything else. You will need other people and you will need to be that other person to someone else, a living breathing screaming invitation to believe better things.

-- Jamie Tworkowski

*i originally wrote this in september; this post is coming to you scheduled. yuuuup, still recovering from wisdom teeth, i can only presume. and if i am somehow better, and i am not still recovering, at least i am prepared blog-wise, and can take time off to watch all the tv shows waiting for me on my shiny new dvr. ahem. anyway. wish me luck.

(side note: while i wrote this in a bit of a hopeless place. God gave me hope again.)