Learning To Love Yourself (More) pt.12

(My mother swims with a diver's weight belt and a knife, 2009)

W.D.Y.W.F.M?

What happens when the thing that once made you happy makes you sad? How do you deal with seeing their face, hearing their voice, and all of their gestures and imperfection that make them, them? Is it the contrast of who you once were, in a memory with them, in comparison with who you are today?

It hurts to know I used to dream more, that I saw a world with more possibilities, and had more enthusiasm. It is the before and after that gets to you, the knowing that the world was once greater and fuller of promise, and now all you have are memories with no real insurance of the future (oh, uncertainty). But what is left once all the cookies are crumbs? The answers aren't here today, and sure there is something to be learned from our past, but what I'm getting at here is that the future is where's it at. For shiny stars and futuristic landscape, where deer roam the field with robot-version deer, and where we picture ourselves happy again. Let yourself dream again, and escape this reality of today for another in future-tense. See the future as not something as far-fetch but as something that seems far-gone because it is that much different from today. And ultimately, see it as the opposite of how you see your past, and all your favorite memories to your detached present; letting the contrast fill you with hope.

Because it could happen, it could be true, and it isn't as ridiculous as wild as your imagination could be, or how your dreams see fit, because once we're there, in the future, it will no longer be the steps before us, and that once contrast will be the difference between yesterday and today. Once we're there, once we're happy again, and everyday starts with a burst of unknown excitement, we'll know we earned each and every moment of this and that, and everything; with each tear, and each fight, we earned the rite to be happy, to let our faces smile on their own.

Let the good times roll on.