Advice

The world, it seems, is always offering up advice. “Don’t give up,” it tells you, but equally it asks that you learn to let go. More than once I have tried to outrun my unhappiness, and more than once I have stayed to face it head-on. Make no mistake that neither choice is easy. Both require strength. Both are acts of courage.

I don’t what courage is, exactly, but I know it when I see it. Sometimes it is obvious, taking the form of activists, and leaders, and groups of people willing to stand up for what they believe is right. Sometimes it is a single voice speaking out against what’s wrong. Sometimes it is loud and ubiquitous and can appear to be so easy that we forget it is something extraordinary.

And sometimes it is ordinary. It is waking up each morning and starting all over again. It is daring to put one foot in front of the other, one day behind the next, to keep moving forward in a life that you may or may not cherish. Don’t ever underestimate the bravery it takes to keep living. It is far more difficult than death.

The world tells you that your time here is short. You have to follow your heart. You have to live in the moment. You can’t afford to spend one second on anything that doesn’t make you happy. But equally the world demands that you be practical. You have to plan for the future. You have to work hard. You have to participate in things that you may or may not enjoy.

Because your life could end tomorrow, but also, it could not, and so in every moment we make decisions and gamble on our time. Every moment we must ask ourselves “what if this is my final moment?” and equally “what if there are a million more to come?”

This is the cost, or perhaps the gift, of being human. We can understand time, but we cannot control it. We know death will arrive, but we cannot say when. We are aware of the inevitability of our end, and we live with that fear. But we are courageous, and so we keep living.

The world tells you to slow down, but also to keep up. It tells you to be quiet, but also to make noise. It tells you to dream big, but also stay grounded. It tells you to be happy, but also not to fear sadness. It tells you to plant roots, but also to explore. It tells you to be yourself, but also asks that you keep changing. It tells you that none of this is easy, and it’s right.

Because all of this is right, or at least, none of it is wrong. There is no advice that will diminish the confusion or frustration of what it means to live a life. No path is simple. No choice is easy. No person has every found the answers to these questions.

But every person since has continued to try. And what better name can we give that than courage? What is braver than continuing to search? What is more daring than hope?

What else is there to do in this moment than have the strength to simultaneously believe it is the last and the first of many more to come? How will you choose to spend it? What dreams will you have? What steps will you take? What love will you feel? How will you inspire others? What advice will you give?

What words will you write?

This I Believe

It’s been a difficult few months. I won’t get into the specifics. They aren’t terribly interesting, anyway. They’re mostly just pieces of the familiar human story –lessons about loss and sadness and growing up. I’ve been feeling what we all, at one time or another, inevitably feel. At times I have named it “hopelessness,” but that’s not what it is. Not really.

Because I’ve never actually given up hope. I’ve never stopped hoping. I’ve never stopped believing that there is something more, something better, waiting for me in the future. As sad as I may sometimes feel, I’ve never stopped believing in the possibility of happiness. I’ve never given up my faith in joy. I’ve never been that foolish.

I know that these feelings are temporary. As lost as I may sometimes feel, I know that feeling lost is a way to find and to be found. As alone as I may sometimes feel, I know that I am not alone, that none of us are. As much as I may sometimes feel disconnected, I know that I am bound by love.

I know that, because I have all of you. That’s the thing about friendship. It gives us hope. It gives us faith. It gives us the strength to keep going. It teaches us, over and over again, to believe in our past and our present and our future. It promises us happiness. It provides us with a family, one that extends further than blood relatives, one as large as all of humanity.

There’s a great line from an essay by Cecile Gilmer from the This I Believe series on NPR that goes “I believe that families are not only blood relatives but sometimes just the people that show up and love you when no one else will.” I take comfort in this idea. I have built my life upon this idea. I believe this, too.

I believe it, because I have all of you. You – my dear friends, who show up, who love me, who let me love you, who are there for me through happiness and sadness, who give me faith in goodness, who I simply could not live without – You are my family. You are my joy. You are the reason I am here.

I exist to love you.

They say you never forget your first love, and I’m sure that’s true. But of course, it isn’t really just your first romantic love, is it? And it isn’t really just the first. Because as it turns out, the older I get, the more certain I become that my favorite moments have been the moments I’ve spent falling in love with each of you, over and over, in a multitude of ways. I can’t forget any of it, any of you. Nor would I ever want to.

Friends, you teach me love – how to love, how to feel loved. Are there greater lessons people anywhere can teach one another? You – individually and collectively – are my living, breathing definition of love. You are the great loves of my life. You are the greatest thing about me. Truly.

I don’t believe in fate, or soul mates, or any of those theories that imply the universe intervenes in our lives. I don’t believe we were all somehow destined to become friends. I think it happened in a much more powerful and meaningful way than fate. I think we chose each other. We didn’t choose to meet. That was circumstance. But we chose to become friends. We worked on these relationships when they needed to be worked on. We fought for these friendships when they needed fighting for. We chose to open our hearts to one another and let each other in. We chose this love.

And we continue to make that choice. Each time we reach out on facebook, in emails, phone calls, texts, letters, cards, gatherings – we continue to make that commitment to our friendships. Every wedding attended and birthday acknowledged and sadness shared and success celebrated is, in the simplest and grandest of terms, an affirmation of love.

It’s been a difficult few months, full of the inevitable life lessons of loss and sadness and the agonizing trials of growing up. But through it all, I have never given up the love I feel for each of you. I have never lost faith in our bond. I have never stopped believing in the shared happiness of the family we have created. I have never stopped hoping for more. I still believe in joy. I forever believe in us.