I learned this amazing lesson the other day. Sometimes there is nothing to say. Sometimes there is nothing to feel. Sometimes there is nothing to express. Sometimes when I become thoughtful and quiet people want to know what is wrong with me. Sometimes it is just where I am. Recently, someone asked me why I was being so quiet and I said because I am. They were upset with me and left because I did not give them the explanation they desired. I guess because I might not have given them what they needed, but it was.
It seems to me as if society measures us by how happy we appear to be, whether that happiness is real, fake, or medically induced. I have friends who take medication to help them feel happy. I have another friend who right now feels the need to fake her happiness so nobody can see her struggle. I have friends who are at that place of questioning everything and giving themselves permission to feel whatever they are feeling and then I have friends who just are.
The last few years my life seems to be changing and evolving faster then I realize at times. I seem to be at a space where I no longer have this overarching need to be surrounded by or in the company of many people. There are days I am content to just be still, quiet, and in a contemplative and meditative state. I have found there are people who I enjoy being with at times because they bring a positive and contemplative energy into my life. At the same time, there are others I am finding I no longer want to be around or no longer want to be around me because I have come to a place where I just let their drama wash over me and no longer reflect it back to them. The only thing I am agreeing to reflect back these days is love, no drama, just love.
I have been learning that I shine the brightest when I am the emptiest. There is a Buddhist monk whose mantra was “empty, empty, happy, happy.” I understand that and have found when I am the emptiest; I am the happiest and feel the most radiant in my life. I have come to embrace a saying that I used to hate “it is what it is.” I can honor the realities of my friends who live in minefields, self-constructed prison cells, and those who live in spiritual gardens. There realities are there realities. They are what they are. My reality is what it is.
I used to feel as if I had to tell everybody everything I did and why. I recently came to the understanding that I do not have to explain my life to anyone. What I do is what I do. Who I am is who I am. What I do is what I do. How I feel is how I feel. It just is because it is and because I am.