I Will Love Them and Squeeze Them

It's funny to me how in a world that can feel so insurmountable stupid, human wisdom can be hiding in the most ordinary of places. The ideas and experience of the billions of people that have come before us is coded into our world. It's in everything that's ever been made. The world can feel like a lonely place, but how can it be, when we're surrounded by ideas and thoughts, almost like we're getting whispered to all the time. We just need to listen.

An example - I'm listening to an audiobook while cooking dinner (I often listen to audiobooks while in the kitchen - Master level on Audible...NBD) and I'm listening the The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green. I've listened to it multiple times. I enjoy his voice, particularly in that format. But I'm listening, and it's a chapter that hadn't struck any particular chord on previous listens, but he's talking about the precipitation type "wintery mix" and he quotes e. e. cummings, saying that "The snow doesn't give a soft white damn whom it touches," and it struck me. I've missed that moment multiple times already, but today it landed.

I've been in the thick of some personal growth the last couple of years - and lately things have been sticky. Long story short - anxiety lies and it makes things really difficult sometimes. Add in my control issues and how I just really want to fix things and move on, and it can be very challenging for the people around me. See - early on I was advised by my therapist to share the burden with a few trusted friends, so I did. (Note: I overshare in general, but here I do it so that I can set the scene for my next discovery of hidden human wisdom.) So I'm struggling through what I'm still very much hoping will be a very growthful time, and I'm leaning a little too hard on a few friends and trying too hard to manage the situation, which I'm sure from the outside looking in is predictably unwise. I'm like George with the damn bunnies. Which means, tonight when I was given reason to remember Hugo, the lovable abominable snowman from Looney Tunes, I could just see me trying to squeeze the life out of my friends.

Life can't be directed like a play, and not every situation can be forced into the little boxes that we'd like to keep them in. So be kind to yourself, but when people need to run away for a little while - it's best to let them.