Our climate can be a fucking bastard — strong winds, unforgiving heat, bone-chilling nights, torrential storms ripping apart the sky. In this world, these natural intensities have a way of acting as a sharp reminder of the exact pace by which you’ve been moving through this life.
In this moment I feel something familiar emerge from the deepest core of my body.
Sometimes it hits, and I can barely move my legs. Holy shit — I need to sit down. I’m dizzy, drunk with this feeling of being engulfed in a seemingly liquid reality, overflowing outside my realms of consciousness and traversing the metaphysical states of being.
It’s the feeling that’s always made me run. It’s chased me and my racing thoughts as I navigated alone around the globe and moved across the country and back, as I sought comfort in the unfamiliar and unknown, trying to escape the reality of moments unfolding in front of my eyes where it all began. It’s sadistic and it’s sensual — the visceral realization of self-awareness.
This feeling of existence used to terrify me.
Do you remember that earth-shattering moment, when you looked in the mirror as a child, and for the first time truly grasped that you are alive? You look down and see the once-solid foundation upon which you’ve been walking for years begin to crack beneath your two feet.
Do you, too, remember peering into your eyes and hearing the distant first chants of the voice that is unmistakably you? You don’t quite know why, but now you are screaming.
You are here. You are alive.
This is the beginning of your comprehension that you are an accidental and exquisite rarity of this earth. There is no gem or mineral that shines quite like those elements of which you are composed. There has been no compilation of cells exactly like yours; your blood pulses through your fragile veins at a rhythm that keeps only you alive. You are aware of this and it’s something you will never shake. Every breath you take from here begins to carry the weight of intention and purpose.
I tried to suppress this sentiment in my early youth, but this feeling…this feeling is wild.
It could never be contained. Nor could it stay submerged, despite the layers of the seemingly guarded and soundproof walls though which I tried to seal it within. The more it was pushed to suppression, the more force it lashed back with and rebelled. I traveled through versions of myself that I can’t even pretend to understand anymore — all to escape the intensity of this feeling.
I would ask myself — am I wrong to feel this way? To live a life of opportunity, safety, and privilege, only to feel the weight and energy of existence pushing against each other deep within my abdomen? Is this feeling permanent, or is it the product of growth, creating something so beautiful, and so raw, which allows us to be fully human? Is this what connects us to one another? Why is it so intense that it makes my muscles clench, my teeth grit against one another, and my throat close shut?
Is this passion? Is this what draws us to new opportunities, to seek risk, to find ourselves in places which have caused the irreparable pain which so many tell us makes us stronger? Is this why we seek discomfort? What kind of twisted beautiful reality have we created for ourselves?
Some questions will remain unanswered, but this awareness, this fire — I’m telling you to let it fucking burn. We do not have to run away from our daily lives to do so. It will not be extinguished by the day-to-day. The journey is the fuel. As we grow older, and as time continues to fold over its previous states and appear more familiar, this feeling resurfaces as a pattern, a primal instinct, allowing us to connect our most present state of living to the deepest generations of human history.
It’s the feeling of raw and unmistakable existence. The disorienting paradox of absolute confusion and peak clarity. It’s like time doesn’t exist, but at the same time, the clock is moving so fast you feel like you may very well be taking your very last breath. Breathe it in. Taste the sweet air. Let it burn your tongue like a rich hot chocolate and let it ignite every inch of life inside of you.
Pain and pleasure. Nothing lasts forever. With this understanding, my mind drifts to our precious golden hour, where the sun melts away and drips warmth over everything caressed by the earlier day’s glow. I reach for the sun as it fades, but my lover’s fingers slip from the grip of my hands until darkness returns as it has before, and as it will again. It is dark and cold, and within this space, there’s nothing left to see and the fear of the unknown locks its eyes with mine. But I look up, and realize the light never really leaves. The stars are glittered above creating delicate pictures in the open air, and the icy glow of the moon makes you shiver. But this shiver is not one of discomfort, for in this moment, in this vast unknown, you and I feel safe again.
This feeling is what brings us together. It is genuine and it is painful and it is so incredibly beautiful. It won’t always make sense, but it is the reminder that we are all human. We often immerse ourselves in a routine which can cause us to forget this absolute truth — possibly the only one at that. But remember that it is very real and it exists within you. Because of this, we are all capable of letting it thrive. Reality does not admonish our humanity. We are powerful because we are one.