I finally land in my bed after a day longer than the stories I spin to convince myself of whatever I feel amiss in me on a given day. On some days, it is patience I lack, and on others, it is goodness, and then, there are those when I carry not a single ounce of empathy in me. Like all of us do in situations, I concoct narratives, and I make stories up. I choose all the parts I would like to keep and lose all the parts I do not require, and then, what is left is an unreal, almost fictional version of my life. I am sure all of us do this to some degree. We convince ourselves of our better natures. Today was one such day, and then, whatever transpired, transpired, and now, here I am in the final hours before I doze off.
And indeed, I dozed off before I could finish the thought and the piece. It seems now, in the fresh, unburdened hours of the morning, I have lost my train of thought, and I am glad for it. It is not suitable for the body to hold morbid thoughts inside it for long. It eats you from the inside. It pays to sleep when the body suggests it, and it pays to let sleep erase the poison we accumulate during the day. The human body, and especially the brain, is a sponge for it.
We possess the unique ability to look at the most picturesque of landscapes and still find something wrong with them. We can look at a beach and comment on it in the most grotesque way known to the universe simply because a thing or two are not to our liking. A dog can come to the beach and start rolling in the sand, not a care in his mind about the minutiae. If left unchecked, this urge is what dictates our days. We must look at the world with grace and kindness. The light of a new day reminds us of this, even if we don’t realise it immediately. Even if we never look inward, the light manages to find its way inside. The question remains, “How long do we let it stay?”
And that is up to us. That is the only thing up to us in this messy, salty broth of life.