Life is...

sometimes life feels like a terrible mess. you can’t go on, you start to think…what the hell, you are at a dead end, death comes to you in your dreams, souls walk up to you in your walking hours, reaching out there hands, voices accost you in the shadows whispering things in your ears as you shake yourself to sleep, you know, the usual. 

But then, you open a draw, and you find your diarys from all the way back in 2003 at first when you were 11. Then the entries from 2005, then those from 2007. And you stop yourself, and you shake off the souls hounding you for a second and you read. And you laugh. You look at the silly hand writing, the big letters. The silly notes like ’today we went to disneyland, today mum shouted at me’ and you really see the growth, the change, the opportunity, the difficulties, the overcoming, the variety, the lows, the highs, the silly things, the not so silly things, the philosophical thoughts, the moments of empowerment and ambition, the moments of doubt and worthlessness. But they’re all there, and they are quite important too, without them we are really just a husk. 

And then, even though behind you in the shadows the souls are still reaching around your throat and people without a soul or a mind throw daggers, you’re sort of satiated for a moment, because you found that collage you made of the first time you found myspace. Or because after 30 entries about how much you hate school and how depressed you are etc, there is that one entry that says ‘Today was the best day ever…’

or ‘Today I actually found a way to feel good!” or ‘I love to look at the stars!’ or that entry about how happy you are that you made friends with Partyshank….

And you realise, you’ve always been there, in there, and you. And the outside has shaped and warped it but really in there is you, the same you, and nothing has really changed apart from growth, learning, being hurt by life being shaped by it. 

And in a way, its the most incredible thing in the world