I have felt old lately. Not physically, as I have in fact started running again after my 12 weeks of inactivity. I feel mentally old and tired. I feel I have become wiser in some ways, but mostly I have lost the optimism that youth is synonymous with.
I have lost hope in what everyone around me seems to keep saying: "everything will turn out OK". Well, I don't believe that anymore. Life in the last couple of years has shown me that often everything does NOT turn out OK. There is simply no reason why things will. Life is simply not fair, you do not get what you deserve. Or rather you might or might not get what you deserve. I knew it, I guess we all do, but lately I have felt it really deeply.
There is a hollowness inside me and I have been carrying a weight with me. My thoughts have been on the nature of life a lot, and I have been discussing it with those close to me. It's hard to explain it, I guess, but I feel it deeply.
The revelation in all of the above is this: even when life is tough, even when there is loss of hope, there can be pleasure in life. Even in my darkest moments life can be funny, happy, warm. Even in the long and hard build up to my dad's death, even then we had laughs. I cherish those moments. Even after the loss of our baby, even then we had love and warmth.
And that is the miracle of life, even in its darkest moments its way preferable to the alternative.
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The title really touched me when I read it [or I guess heard it, it's from Baz Luhrmann Lyrics - Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen)]. As people we naturally do both. But truth is, life throws all sorts of stuff at us and, really, we have little choice in it. Our only choice is in our reaction. I plough ahead into the future! It's spring time!
