Some Days Are Just About Making it Through

Motivation for when nothing makes sense and you lose sight of your vision

Today, my main accomplishment was staring at walls. I stared at them as the light formed different assortments of rectangles on them. I watched for odd lines and scratches, finding faces in their lines. I considered the absolute corner points of the room, and fell into them, like an Escher painting. I moved positions in the fort of my duvet, and I started all over again. 

I could stay in bed all morning like this, some days. Not reading, not watching movies, not scrolling through my phone. Just laying there. Like a strange creature, transfixed on the details of everything around it. From the tiny floating particles of dust in the light, to the scattered objects also lying around, with no intention of moving. 

I enjoy the nothingness, but I’m also imprisoned in it while it lasts. Like a sweet melancholia. A slow existence with nothing to say for itself. 

Some days, I have no ideas and no willingness to write anything down. I’m not interested in having these ideas that come from my silent observation. I just want to be in them. As a third person, and first-person observer all at once. 

I don’t want to make sense of things, or struggle to find coherence and meaning in something that isn’t trying to be anything. 

Some days, I just want to be, as I evolve, behind the scenes. 

It’s funny how we always equate exhaustion with physical, emotional or mental strain, but never with that which is happening behind the scenes. 

The undoing of years of doing, that shed slowly, and sometimes suddenly. We forget about all the basement handiwork. The things that are happening below the surface of our awareness and understanding. 

We forget about all the energetic tosses and turns, while we in turn, toss and turn on our beds, restless and defeated. 

We just lay there, staring at our walls.

There is something to be said about these days. These slow, drippy, sluggish days. They are actually fuel for our growth. A strategic pit stop to integrate all the changes that are happening before we have time to make any external changes. 

These slow days are a life force for our imminent creativity. 

These slow days are not to be neglected, pushed aside and wasted. They aren’t to be discarded as ‘bad’ days. There is no good or bad. 

There are only days. 

Everything is in constant movement. Move with the flow, not against it. It is a passing through, not a permanent residence. 

Commit to it while it lasts, then let it go, and feel new from its passing.

…

These slow days always make me think about autumn. Have you ever stood underneath an autumnal tree? Under the bright breeze of its falling leaves?

There is something magical about watching a tree let go so effortlessly of that which it no longer needs. That which has reached its full growth potential — full of life and ready to die.

And as its delicate leaves scatter into the wind as slowly as a brushstroke, their beauty is mesmerizing. There is nothing sad about their going. And when the leaf finally reaches the ground, it’s beautiful in an entirely new way. Like a Persian carpet that covers the dark, cold, cement. Brown, red, orange, and black.

Each detail of the elaborate rug has its own life. Each leaf is like an enigma to be solved in its intricate lines. Life and death pumping from its veins like rivers that have been dried but never disappeared from the path.

Everything is part of a master plan, and I’m just a witness. Like this tree. This must be Morse code on its trunk. A secret message imprinted in its bark. I am sure of it. I just don’t know what it is.

But life is always happening beyond my idea of it. Everything is connected and the cold and death I see are merely an illusion of something much larger. Something that carries on without me, yet that I am inextricably a part of.

Still, being a part of it sometimes just means making it through. Not in resistance, not in giving in, just in going through it.

As I was walking in the park, I was listening to a song by Angie McMahon called “Making it Through”. It resonated with everything I could see around me.

“And when I grow up, I wanna be like a tree

And change with the seasons, helping people breathe

But all I’ve achieved lately is making it through

Just making it through”

Sometimes you flourish, thrive, and help people breathe. Other times you just let go and make it through. There is no right or wrong, no better or worse. It’s all a necessary part of the process of life.

We get so obsessed with “being happy” and “having more” that we forget we are part of the cycle of nature. Everything will always change, and we will always grow and die, expand and retreat.

Instead of running after Spring all through the year, we should be resting in peace through all the seasons, and adjusting accordingly to what is being asked of us in that special time.

If cold means time to go inward, release, and reflect, then that is what I shall do. And I will find peace in it.

Everything is as it should be. Stay in bed for now, then get up and start again.

“Time is supposed to run out, time is supposed to

Sun is supposed to go down, sun is supposed to

Like your mood, like your power, like your battery

Rise, fall, rise, life, death, life again

Sky, ground, sky, day, night, day again

Rise, fall, rise, life, death, life again

Sky, ground, sky, light, dark, light again

Light, dark, light again, light, dark, light again”

—Angie McMahon, “Making it Through”