One idea I have been introduced to and have been trying to absorb is that if you numb the negative, you cannot feel fully the positive. Sometimes it feels like I am standing on a mountain. I have climbed to the top and I feel happy. Then immediately I start to slip down the opposite slope. It can be disappointing to sense and feel something beautiful and then let it fall so fast. But another idea I have been toying with is, what if my happiness is not tainted by sadness, but only seasoned with it? What if they just go together? Does that really make happiness worth less? Maybe it is like putting salt in cookies or sugar in spaghetti sauce. At first it may not make sense, but they actually taste better that way. Maybe feeling both emotions simultaneously just means simply that: I feel. It just means I am alive. My mind likes the idea, but my heart resists. Then my heart finds healing in the notion, but my mind get confused in all the little nuances. Then I write poetry to try and make sense of it.
There is a poetry in the way that the streetlight reflects on the wet asphalt as it rains.
And in the way it smells.
As it rains, even the pavement can hold beauty.
As it rains, even I can believe in the power of using my senses
to awaken my connection to this world.
As my soul curls into the contentment of sensing
I am energized and stand on a mountain
from which I can see both happiness and sorrow.
I do not want to cheapen one by refusing to feel the other.
Rain helps me remember that simplicity is the answer.
Not that life is simple, but that it simply must be accepted.
Mess and all, sorrow and all,
confusion,
joy,
love,
heartbreak,
and never ending questions.
