How Did I Get Here

What do you do when your life doesn’t really happen the way it seems like it will? That’s a question I ask myself every day: “What do I do now?” I keep waiting for an answer to come out from somewhere; to help me from making another mistake. But thinking that can be solved in one simple answer is part of my problem, and thinking that mistakes can somehow be avoided altogether is another. Life isn’t easy. Life isn’t simple. But life goes on.

This is something I try to remind myself every day when things seem to get harder and more frustrating. The truth that life goes on.

When no matter how much effort I put in, my mental to-do list never seems to shrink as one thing accomplished is instantly replaced by another equally demanding task – the annoyance that life goes on.

When things take an unexpected turn in a way you weren’t prepared for, despite the hundreds of possibilities you tried to run through mentally while overthinking – the relief that life goes on.

When your work and responsibilities seem to be leveling out and moving at a manageable pace that allows you to finally catch your breath for the first time in years – the sad realization that life goes on.

On days when something so horrible, so tragically unavoidable, so unbearably debilitating and world-shaking happens that throws you from the comfortable life you were just learning how to navigate smoothly, – the turbulent nature of life that goes on.

When something comes along out of the blue to ruin the world you managed to put together with every painful ragged breath, every bead of sweat squeezed out through years of uncertainty and torment, and every stinging tear that trailed its way down your face to your lips where all you could do was taste your own desperation for a better life, hoping your last ditch efforts and the remainder of your abused strength is enough to keep your head above water only to feel yourself slipping deeper into the waves that seem to never tire.

Life. Goes. On.

There is a certain sadness to this statement; there is a power in it, too.

Though this ensures that we know all of our good times must end at some point, the relaxing weekend spent with friends and family has to turn into the work week that drains your spirit and body, it also gives the promise of an end to the worse times, too.

This is the greatest hope that guides me: knowing that no matter how hard something is now, it has to end eventually. There was a time in my life where I believed they couldn’t. I believed the hardships and difficulties to be an all-powerful enduring beast with little care to those they devastated in their path.

I thought they’d never end, and I couldn’t even picture a life without the stresses I knew then. I thought my whole life I’d spend being dragged mercilessly through the chaos to be left alone, where I’d have to try to pick up the pieces of what was left of me only to immediately be brought back down to my lowest level.

I never thought that would end. I thought that would be my life. And I was tired.

But life goes on.

Things get better, and sometimes they get worse. But life always goes on.

While the good times can’t last, the bad ones won’t either. It’s a hope I keep with me: the promise of change, the promise of a new morning, or of rest in the evening. It’s a drive that gives me enough strength to make it through, even when I feel I have nothing left to give.

The hope, that life goes on.