Maybe it's the clouds moving out and the glimpse of blue sky so it's sunny while snowing. Maybe its the blankets and drifts and odd shapes of frozen white outside the window which are a total pain when you have to be in it, but when you can sit at home and look out, it's quite beautiful. Maybe it was the slow dance last night. Maybe its the mix of space music mix I'm listening to this morning. Maybe its joy in watching Sophie go running around into the banks taller than her and getting lost in her own pleasure of racing through the snow.

But today, I'm just like "fuck that shit". In a good way.

Fcked up isht happens to us, so much trauma, and our minds and bodies do extraordinary things to cope and heal and protect us from it. Then sometimes the protection are walls and the coping has dictator-like ways of shaping our lives for fear that it will happen again and bullying ourselves and those around us, and its like all the good things we were doing for ourselves turns inward and implodes and we're continuing the cycle without even knowing it. This morning I thought, I spent 20something years feeling like everyday I was a messed up freak who had to look in the mirror at an image that was nothing like the one in my head, and now, I'm an adult, I have power and choice and freedom, and most importantly, I have a body I don't hate, in fact it kinda fcking rocks. I was able to keep my brain in the process, I still have all those idealized dreams and puzzling thoughts I've collected through all the days of this life and I risked a lot to make all that happen (including losing some key figures), and if I just sit here and don't breakthrough and enjoy it, then what was the point of doing it in the first place? To merely stay alive, to get by, to force the whole world to conform to my vision of how things should happen? Fuck that shit.

It's like what Sunim talked about one time, that buddhists are inherently loving happy people, not the somber stern idea people have (are); it's just like what a former pastor talked about one time, that christians are inherently loving happy people, not the somber judgmental idea people have (are) -- why are we, human beings collectively, continually getting bogged down into it? Life is fcked up and hard, no doubt. And for some, it is way harder than others. But damn, sometimes we're just perpetuating that isht. There's enough real trauma in the world, why make it worse but creating more, dwelling in it, revelling in it? For the sake of excitement? Because it makes us feel something intense? Because we don't think we deserve something better? Because we don't think we're capable of something better? Fuck that shit.

Yeah, I'm still going to have that pain in my chest sometimes. I'm still going to want to lie down and nap when I get overwhelmed by it all. I'm still going to hurt like hell sometimes for no obviously discernible reason. But damn, can't I laugh and have fun sometimes too? Can't I cut myself and everyone around me some loving slack? Can't I break the part of the cycle that I'm consciously or unconsciously creating out of habit, at every moment possible when I see with clarity how I'm unintentionally hurting myself?

Yes. Yes, I can. Happy Valentine's Day to me. I choo-choo-choose you!