Expanse of Life

Today was a doozy of a day. I mean, it wasn’t just bad – it was next level awful.

Somehow, I am absolutely okay, though. I can say that in the past, days like today would have had me beside myself.

Instead of feeling overwhelmed and in need of some respite, I’m just over here like, ‘eh. . . tomorrow will be better.

At the end of the day, me and my little family are alive and well. We have a roof over our heads, and nothing fundamentally has changed. There are a couple extra things to navigate, but it will all soon be behind us. Everything that happened today will just be a memory in a short while – these were just some things that happened, that made us pause on our path. Nothing that will stop us dead in our tracks or make us have to turn around and retrace our steps, or make us have to give up the journey all together.

I’m good with it. Of course, I wish things had been different in each unfavorable occurrence today, but things could have been so, so much worse.

Therefore, I accept what transpired today.

When I came across the next quote that I would be writing on, my initial thought was that it seemed slightly repetitive. I wasn’t sure if I even could write it.

It is not the length of life, but the depth of life. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

That is only part of the quote – the quote book left the rest out. The entire quote reads, “It is not the length of life, but the depth of life. He who is not everyday conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life.”

I mean, a lot of what I’ve written in the last two posts covers the entirety of this quote.

However.

What I’ve covered in the last two posts – Leap and Live Out Loud – only discusses part of this.

Leap covered taking risks to move yourself forward in life.

Live Out Loud covered doing the most with this life that we’re given. I touched a little on enjoying the little things, but today’s quote has me wanting to explore that further.

The thing about it is this – you can take risks to move yourself forward, and you can go out and travel and explore and live your best life. . . but I think what Mr. Emerson is trying to convey is it isn’t enough to just do things. You truly need to take the time to experience them.

What does it matter if you get that promotion, if you don’t experience the gratification and pride that comes from climbing the ladder? If you don’t learn things along the way? What does it matter if you travel the world, if you don’t enjoy the sights and smells and unique flavors of every place you visit?

I mentioned wanting to play in the ocean and walk through a rainforest in my last post. At some point in my life, I may actually do those things. But I don’t want to just do those things. I want to experience them. I want to feel the sticky heat of the rainforest and smell the green in the air. I want to feel the cool water against my skin and the sun warming my soul.

The day to day should be no different.

In writing this post, I realized that while I ate today, I couldn’t tell you a damn thing about how my food tasted. I should have taken time to note the texture and flavor of the salsa at lunch, and the tanginess of the barbeque sauce on my hamburger at dinner. . . Instead, I was wrapped up in the events transpiring in my world. I needed to fuel myself to physically cope, so I did what my body required of me. It may have provided a grounding point if I had taken a moment to actually experience the food I was putting into my body.

On a normal day, there are a lot of little things that I notice. . . Flowers in unexpected places and sunrays dancing in puddles and the smell of burning brush on a country road and the refreshing taste of ice cream on a hot summer evening. . . today was a little extreme, and it’s okay that I was too involved with navigating to enjoy the simple things. But to live life, day to day, just doing things and not experiencing them? That sounds awful.

To touch on the rest of the quote, I absolutely agree with what Ralph wrote. There’s some other quote out there that says something along the lines of , ‘do something every day that scares you.’

I mean. . . maybe that’s a little drastic. I kinda like my quiet days. But if you don’t regularly push your boundaries and do something to move yourself forward, something that scares you just a little bit, you run the risk of just existing in this life. You run the risk of becoming stagnant.

I’ll reiterate what I said yesterday – to each their own. Maybe you’re content in your mundane and predictable world. That’s cool. You do you.

But me, I kinda like pushing my limits and seeing just what I can accomplish in this life. I kinda like the thrill that comes with breaking expectations and doing what a lot of people would say isn’t doable.

And I mean really, just why the hell shouldn’t I? I have one life. I won’t live today ever again. Why not take that risk and climb that mountain and conquer the whole damn world, while I still can?

So even though today was a shit show, I’m not going to dwell on it. Because while I won’t ever have this day to live again, I also won’t ever have to live this day again. When I go to bed tonight, I will wake up tomorrow with a whole fresh new day ahead of me. A day where I may just do some boring household chores, or a day where I will get to experience something wonderful. There’s no way to know what tomorrow may bring.

And yes – it may bring a whole new brand of fuckery my way. That is a definite possibility.

But it’s a risk that I choose to take every day, and a risk that I am willing to take. Because there’s just too much wonderful out there for me to encounter to dwell on the possibility of a bad day.

Now that the sun has set on this day, and I am out of the thick of the multiple clusterfucks that today brought my way, now that I am in the quiet of my basement office, I can take a moment to enjoy the good. I am comforted by the heat of my little office heater on my legs, and the cool basement air on my arms. I have music playing, and I can hear the hum of the air conditioner as it tries its best to compete with the 80+ degree heat outside. I’m in my corner of the basement writing, and Matt is in his corner of the basement, whistling while he’s working on a computer. . . he had a pretty rough day today, too. But he’s whistling, and he’s unbothered in this moment, and it makes me happy that I have at least been able to teach him a lot of what I’ve written in this post. It’s just a bad day, not a bad life.

This isn’t something that has come to me easily. Part of it is just my nature, yes. But I also make a conscious effort to notice the little stuff. Because if I didn’t, all of the bad days and bad experiences that I have had may have molded me into a very different person. I could be bitter, and angry.

But instead, I notice the way my morning glory is forming blooms, and beauty in sunsets and sunrises and the quiet of early mornings and late nights. . . Because there’s no time to be distracted by the bad. There is only room in this life for the beauty and wonderful things that this life has to offer.

Everything else is just a thing that happened. Because it doesn’t matter how long I’m on this earth, it’s how much I truly enjoy and experience in the expanse of life.

Photo by Abhidev Vaishnav on Unsplash