In Summary: * Pretty steady rain falling outside and 700WLW Cincinnati Radio playing here in my room, bringing me their pregame show ahead of tonight's MLB Game between the Reds and the Rays. Plans are to stay with this station for the call of the game, then wrap up the night prayers and head to bed.

Prayers, etc.: * I have a daily prayer regimen I try to follow throughout the day from early morning, as soon as I roll out of bed, until head hits pillow at night. Details of that regimen are linked to my link tree, which is linked to my profile page here.

Starting Ash Wednesday, 2026, I've added this daily prayer as part of the Prayer Crusade Preceding the 2026 SSPX Episcopal Consecrations.

Health Metrics: * bw= 232.81 lbs. * bp= 151/91 (65)

Exercise: * morning stretches, balance exercises, kegel pelvic floor exercises, half squats, calf raises, wall push-ups

Diet: * 06:10 – 1 banana * 07:20 – crispy oatmeal cookies * 08:30 – 1 peanut butter sandwich * 12:00 – tuna and cooked vegetables * 17:15 – 1 fresh apple

Activities, Chores, etc.: * 04:30 – listen to local news talk radio * 05:15 – bank accounts activity monitored. * 05:40- read, write, pray, follow news reports from various sources, surf the socials, nap. * 09:30 – start my weekly laundry * 13:00 – watching a JMC Broadcasting interview: Delta Force Vet on Aliens, Demons & The War Nobody Talks About | Chuck Sellers while folding laundry * 16:45 – listening to 700WLW, Cincinnati's News Radio now broadcasting the “Inside Pitch” pregame show ahead of tonight's MLB Game between the Cincinnati Reds and the Tampa Pay Rays. Plan is to stay with this station for the radio call of tonight's game.

Chess: * 15:50 – moved in all pending CC games

Before the city had fully decided to wake up, while the gray over Elliott Bay was still soft and unfinished, Jesus stood alone at Pier 62 with His hands loosely folded and His head bowed. The water moved below Him in slow dark folds. A gull cried once and then went quiet. Far off, a ferry made a low sound that seemed to come through the mist more than through the air. The city behind Him held its lights like a tired person keeping their eyes open by force. He prayed there without hurry. He did not pray like someone trying to get through a task before the day began. He prayed as if the day itself was resting inside the Father’s hands before any person took one anxious breath, before any bus door folded open, before any phone lit up with bad news, before any heart started bracing itself for one more ordinary hurt.

The wind came in cool from the water and pressed gently against His coat. He did not move away from it. He prayed for people in apartments above coffee shops who had slept badly and would still smile before work. He prayed for the man already tying his apron in a bakery kitchen because debt never lets the clock stay still. He prayed for the woman walking out of a hospital after twelve hours on her feet, with her back hurting and her face arranged in that practiced calm people wear when they no longer expect anyone to ask how they are. He prayed for the son who had promised himself he would call his mother back and still had not. He prayed for the mother who had been forgiven by God but had not yet found a way to believe that meant anything in the rooms where her own failure still lived. He prayed for the city with the quiet patience of someone who loved it without needing it to impress Him.

When He lifted His head, the morning had brightened just enough to separate the water from the sky. He stayed a moment longer, looking over the bay and then back toward the buildings, as if listening for something beneath the traffic that had not started yet. Then He turned from the railing and began walking inland, leaving the water behind with the same unforced steadiness He had brought to it. By the time He reached the long rise toward First Hill, the streets had begun to fill with delivery trucks, early commuters, and people holding paper cups like small sources of courage.

At Harborview, the shift was changing. The place always seemed to carry more than one kind of exhaustion. Some people came into it afraid. Some left it stunned. Some wore badges and scrubs and moved with the clipped focus of people who had learned how to keep going even when the inside of them felt scraped thin. Marisol Vega came out through a side entrance near the loading area with her coat half on and her work shoes still squeaking slightly from the floors she had mopped before dawn. She had been up all night. The skin beneath her eyes had gone that bruised color tiredness gives when it stops asking permission to show itself. She stood under the awning because it looked like rain and pulled her phone from her pocket with the kind of reluctance people have when they already know a screen can wound them before it speaks.

There was a message from Sofia.

I’ll be at King Street at 6:40 tonight. I can give you ten minutes before I head back. Please don’t make it a whole thing.

Marisol read it once, then again, then a third time, as if the words might settle into something less sharp if she kept staring at them. Ten minutes. Please don’t make it a whole thing. Her daughter had not called her Mom in a message for almost a year. Sometimes Sofia used her name. Sometimes she used nothing at all. Marisol had learned not to correct that. You did not get to demand tenderness from someone you had once frightened in her own home.

She typed back, erased it, typed again, erased it again. Too eager looked desperate. Too calm looked fake. Too long would feel like pressure. Too short would feel cold. The old panic rose in her throat, the one that used to send her reaching for the wrong thing years ago when she had still been losing days at a time and telling lies with such speed she almost believed them herself. She had been clean for six years now. Six years, three months, and eleven days. The number lived in her body like something carved there. It mattered. It did not matter enough to erase what came before.

She finally sent, Okay. I’ll be there.

The message sat there after it went, small and exposed. She slipped the phone back into her pocket and pressed both hands around her paper cup even though the coffee had already gone lukewarm. She told herself to breathe. She told herself there were twelve hours between now and then. She told herself not to cry under the awning outside the hospital where people carried worse things than a text message every day. None of it helped. Her chest felt tight and hollow at the same time.

“You look like you’re trying not to fall apart in public,” a voice said gently beside her.

She turned fast. Jesus was standing a few feet away, close enough to speak quietly, far enough not to crowd her. There was nothing dramatic in the way He appeared there. No one around them stopped. No sound dropped out of the world. He simply stood in the morning like someone who belonged in it. His face held that calm attention some people spend their whole lives searching for without knowing what they are hungry for. He was not staring at her. He was seeing her. That was different, and Marisol felt the difference at once.

She gave a tired little laugh that was more air than sound. “I’m not trying not to. I’m doing a pretty average job.”

He nodded as if she had told the truth and that mattered. “That’s still trying.”

She looked away toward the street. A bus rolled past, spraying a fine line of water from the curb. “You ever get one message and the whole day changes shape?”

“Yes,” He said.

There was something in the way He answered that made the word feel larger than agreement. Marisol rubbed her thumb against the seam of the cup. “My daughter wants to see me tonight. For ten minutes.” She tried to smile, but the smile broke before it formed. “That should be good news, right?”

“It is.”

She turned back to Him, almost irritated by how quickly He had said it. “It doesn’t feel good.”

“It can still be good.”

The sentence landed inside her without forcing anything open. She stared at Him for a moment. “You don’t know me.”

“I know enough to see that you are afraid of making the wrong move before the day has even started.”

Marisol let out a slow breath. A man in navy scrubs brushed past them on his phone. Somewhere behind the doors, a metal cart rattled. She wanted to ask this stranger how he had read her that quickly. She wanted to ask why his voice made her feel less alone and more exposed at the same time. Instead she said, “I haven’t slept. I did a double shift because rent is rent, and now I have twelve hours to ruin ten minutes that haven’t even happened yet.”

He looked at her with a quiet warmth that did not pity her. “Then let the twelve hours be what they are. You do not have to live all ten minutes before they arrive.”

Marisol almost said that easy for you to say, but the words died before she spoke them because something in Him made cheap resistance feel childish. Not wrong. Just thin. She looked down at her work shoes. One lace had come loose. “I don’t want to go home yet.”

“Then don’t.”

She frowned. “What am I supposed to do all day? Wander downtown like a crazy person?”

“You could walk.”

She gave Him a sideways look. “That sounds like something someone says when they don’t have bills.”

A smile touched His mouth, small and real. “It is still a good answer.”

She should have walked away. She knew that. She was tired enough to make poor judgments, and Seattle was not a city where you followed calm strangers because they spoke like they already knew the part of you that stayed hidden. But He was not asking her to trust Him with something theatrical. He was standing beside a hospital on a gray morning and speaking with the steadiness of someone who had nowhere to prove Himself. It unsettled her in a way that made room inside her instead of shrinking it.

So she started walking.

They went downhill first, away from the hospital and toward the still-building movement of downtown. The city smelled faintly of wet pavement and roasted coffee and the cold breath of the bay coming between blocks. Marisol kept telling herself this was temporary, that she would peel away after the next corner, but every time she thought it, Jesus would say something small that felt like it belonged exactly where the hurt was.

She told Him Sofia was twenty-one now and living south of the city with a friend while finishing school. She told Him there had been months when Sofia was younger when Marisol had said she was going to work and had instead disappeared into places she never wanted to describe in full. She told Him about the night she had pawned a bracelet that had belonged to Sofia’s grandmother and then spent three days pretending she had misplaced it. She told Him about rehab, meetings, relapse, rehab again, the way shame could make even honest people start speaking like liars because they were always trying to get ahead of what others might say. She did not spill it all at once. It came in pieces between intersections, between the hiss of buses pulling up and the small silence after crosswalk signals chirped.

Jesus did not rush to answer every confession. Sometimes He let a thing be said without stepping on it. Sometimes He asked one question that opened more than advice could. “When did you decide your daughter would only ever see who you were at your worst?” He asked as they passed a man unlocking a café door.

Marisol kept walking, then slowed. “I didn’t decide it. I just know how memory works.”

“That is not the same thing.”

She shoved her hands into her coat pockets. “You break trust with a kid badly enough, memory gets final.”

“Not always.”

“You keep saying things like that.”

“Because you keep speaking as if the wound is the only thing alive.”

She looked at Him sharply. The words stung because they were too close to true. She had done so much work to stay sober, to keep jobs, to pay what she could, to stop lying, to answer calls, to show up. Yet somewhere underneath all of it she still believed that the truest thing about her had already happened, and everything good since then was just delayed evidence that she was no longer at her worst. That belief had become so familiar she rarely noticed it was there.

By the time they reached the Seattle Central Library, the morning had thickened into full day. People moved in and out through the entrance with backpacks, umbrellas, tote bags, children, laptops, tired eyes, half-finished breakfasts. Marisol stopped outside and looked up at the glass and steel above them. “I used to come here when Sofia was little,” she said. “She loved it. Said it felt like a spaceship built for books.”

“And you?”

“I liked that nobody asked questions if you stayed quiet.”

Jesus glanced toward the doors. “Do you want to go in?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know what I want.”

“That is honest too.”

Inside, the air held that library mix of paper, fabric, old dust, and heat from too many people sheltering from weather or life or both. Marisol had not realized how tired she was until the warmth hit her. They moved through the first floor slowly. A man slept bent over a table with his head on folded arms. A teenager in a rain jacket was whispering angrily into an earbud. Two little boys argued over a graphic novel with the raw seriousness only children can bring to something small. Near the information desk, a woman in a library badge was trying to help an older man reset a password while also watching a toddler who had wandered six feet from his grandmother and was delighted with his own brief freedom.

Jesus noticed everything without seeming pulled thin by any of it.

Marisol noticed that.

A younger staff member emerged from a side area carrying a stack of books and wearing the expression of someone trying to remain polite while her insides were already used up for the day. She set the stack down too hard, muttered an apology under her breath, and closed her eyes for one second like she regretted even that much visible strain. Jesus walked over to the desk. Marisol stayed back, not wanting to intrude, but she watched.

“Long morning?” He asked the woman.

She gave the kind of laugh service workers give when they are trying to avoid telling the truth and telling it anyway. “You could say that.”

“What happened?”

The woman hesitated. She looked maybe twenty-eight, maybe younger because of the way worry and youth can sit beside each other without blending. “Nothing dramatic. A man passed out in one of the chairs upstairs. We called someone to check on him. He’s okay, I think. I just…” She stopped and looked down at the books. “My brother used to disappear like that. You’d find him sleeping in places he should not have been sleeping. Everybody would act annoyed first and human second. I hated that. Then today I heard my own voice sounding annoyed before anything else. I’m just tired of being around need all the time.”

Jesus did not flinch from her honesty. “Need is hard to stand near when you have your own.”

Her mouth tightened. Something in her face softened after that, not because the day had improved, but because someone had named the truth without accusing her. She nodded once. “Yeah.”

He thanked her for being there anyway. Not in the grand way people sometimes praise strangers because they are uncomfortable with pain. He thanked her like her staying mattered. When He stepped back, the woman was blinking quickly and straightening the books again with more care.

Marisol looked at Him. “You do that a lot?”

“What?”

“Talk to people like you can hear the thing under the thing.”

He met her gaze. “People speak it more than they know.”

They moved farther in. Marisol stopped near a window and watched rain begin to bead against the glass. It had started lightly, not enough to change the city, just enough to place a thin veil over the streets below. She thought about Sofia at eight years old, curled into her side on a library beanbag chair, mispronouncing dinosaur names with complete confidence. She thought about the years after that, the years when the girl had stopped leaning and started watching. Kids who live around instability learn to read rooms before adults do. Sofia had learned Marisol’s moods, her lies, the false brightness in her voice, the delay before an answer that meant her mother was deciding which version of the truth to give. Children should not have to become interpreters that young.

“I used to think if I got sober and stayed sober, eventually the past would look smaller,” Marisol said quietly.

Jesus stood beside her without speaking.

“It didn’t,” she went on. “It got clearer. That’s the part nobody tells you. You get clean and suddenly you can see what you did with both eyes open.”

He nodded. “Yes.”

She turned to Him, almost angry again because He had agreed too easily. “That’s not encouraging.”

“No,” He said. “It is not. But clarity is not punishment. It is the beginning of truth.”

Marisol swallowed. The rain on the glass had started running in crooked lines. “What if truth just proves I ruined the best part of my life?”

He was quiet for a moment. Then He said, “The best part of your life is not behind God but in front of Him.”

She looked away immediately because tears had come too fast, and she hated crying where strangers could see. A little girl ran past them carrying three books to her chest, and her grandmother called softly for her to slow down. The ordinary tenderness of that nearly undid Marisol. She pressed two fingers hard against the bridge of her nose.

They left before noon. The rain had eased to mist. Jesus led nothing. He suggested nothing like a command. He simply kept walking at a pace that allowed the day to unfold without feeling chased. They drifted toward Pike Place Market because the city naturally drew that way, and by the time they crossed into the press of people and flowers and produce and storefront windows, Seattle had become fully itself. Tourists were already angling phones toward signs. Workers moved faster than the crowd. Fish smell mixed with coffee and fried food and damp pavement. Somewhere someone laughed too loudly, and somewhere else a child cried because the day had become too much too early.

Marisol almost said she wanted to leave. Crowds made her feel visible in the wrong way. But then she saw a flower stand bursting with color against the gray day and remembered that Sofia used to stop dead in front of flowers as a child, no matter where they were going. Not because she was especially sentimental. She just liked bright things with no apology in them.

“I should bring something,” Marisol murmured.

“For your daughter?” Jesus asked.

“She’ll probably hate that.”

“Do you want to bring something?”

Marisol stared at the buckets of tulips and ranunculus and small white blooms she could not name. “I don’t know. I can’t tell anymore which things are loving and which things are me trying to manage how I’m seen.”

Jesus looked at the flowers too. “Then do not buy something to manage her. Buy something because love is still allowed to have hands.”

That sentence sat in her chest. She stepped closer to the stall. The woman working there was older, maybe in her sixties, wrapped in a dark sweater with a pencil tucked into her hair. She had the alert, practical face of someone who had spent years reading customers in seconds. She watched Marisol study the flowers and waited without pushing.

“My daughter’s meeting me tonight,” Marisol said finally, embarrassed by how raw her own voice sounded. “We haven’t been good in a while.”

The vendor nodded as if that was a language she knew. “Then don’t get the perfect arrangement. Perfect is suspicious. Get something that feels like you mean it.”

Marisol laughed in spite of herself. “That is strangely helpful.”

The woman handed her three stems of pale yellow tulips and tucked in one deep red ranunculus. “These. Enough to say I came with something in my hand. Not enough to say I rehearsed the moment.”

Marisol looked up. “You’re good at this.”

“No,” the woman said, glancing toward another customer reaching for change. “I’m old. That’s different.”

Marisol paid, then stepped aside. She stood holding the small wrapped bouquet like it was more fragile than flowers had any right to be. Jesus watched her with a softness that made her think He cared about this tiny choice, not because flowers were important, but because frightened people often reveal themselves through small acts first.

They continued through the market. Near a produce stand, a young man in an apron dropped a crate hard enough to bruise the fruit inside, then swore under his breath. An older man beside him snapped, “Maybe wake up before you come to work tomorrow.” The younger man muttered back something sharp, and the older man’s jaw set in that familiar adult way that says I have no room left for your pain because mine is already eating me alive.

Jesus stopped.

He did not step in like someone seizing a scene. He simply bent, picked up an apple that had rolled beneath the edge of the stand, and handed it to the younger man first. Then He looked at the older one and said, “You are both more tired than this argument.”

The older man blinked as if he had been interrupted by his own conscience. The younger one stared at the apple in his hand. Neither answered. Jesus went on, “You do not have to use each other as the place where the morning breaks.”

No lecture followed. No crowd gathered. The two men stood there with the sudden silence that comes when anger gets named as grief wearing work clothes. By the time Marisol and Jesus moved on, the older man was quietly telling the younger one to go wash up and take five minutes.

Marisol shook her head. “How do you keep doing that?”

“Doing what?”

“Making people stop pretending.”

He glanced at her bouquet. “You stopped pretending hours ago.”

“That’s different.”

“Only because it feels like your own.”

They found a place to sit where the sound of the market softened but never disappeared. Marisol had not eaten since sometime around three in the morning, so Jesus bought bread from a counter nearby and split it with her as if the gesture needed no explanation. She was too hungry to resist out of pride. The bread was warm enough in the middle to make her unexpectedly emotional again, which annoyed her. There should have been a limit to how vulnerable exhaustion could make a person.

She told Him then about the worst night with Sofia. Not the broad version she gave in meetings. The real one. Sofia had been thirteen. Marisol had promised to pick her up from a school music event. She had meant to. She had even written it on the back of an envelope and put the envelope in her bag. Then she had vanished into a binge so fast and stupid it barely deserved the word choice. Sofia had waited outside the school nearly an hour before a teacher finally called Marisol’s sister. When Marisol came home the next day, ashamed and sick and defensive, Sofia was sitting at the table with her backpack still on like she had forgotten to take it off. The girl had not yelled. That was the part that stayed with Marisol. She had only looked at her mother with a face too old for thirteen and said, “I know when you’re gone even if you’re standing here.”

Marisol had never gotten fully past that sentence. Sometimes she heard it while washing dishes. Sometimes while making up a bed. Sometimes while walking to work before sunrise. It lived in her like a nail.

When she finished, Jesus did not rush to cover the story with comfort. He let the grief of it stand between them. At last He said, “And yet your daughter texted you.”

Marisol stared at Him. “That’s what you take from all that?”

“It is what is still living in the story.”

She looked down at her hands. Her knuckles were rough from cleaning chemicals and winter air. “You really think a text message means something that big?”

“I think ten minutes can hold more mercy than fear expects.”

The afternoon wore on. The sky never cleared, but the city gained that silver brightness rainy places sometimes hold without becoming cheerful. By late day they were walking south again, toward King Street Station. The closer they got, the quieter Marisol became. The bouquet had started to feel too warm in her hand from being held so long. She kept checking the time and then hating herself for checking. At one light she almost turned around and said she could not do it. At another she thought about texting Sofia that something had come up. Cowardice was always most persuasive right before the moment that could expose it.

Jesus never grabbed her arm. He never cornered her with holy language. He simply stayed near.

At the station, the evening rush had begun its slow gathering. People rolled suitcases over the floor. Announcements echoed overhead. The building held that strange mix of motion and waiting that train stations always keep, as if departures and delays are only different words for the same ache. Marisol stood just off to one side of the main flow, clutching the flowers and trying not to scan every face too hard.

“She may not come,” she said, not looking at Him.

“She may.”

“She may look at me like I’m a problem she promised herself she would handle quickly.”

“She may.”

Marisol let out a brittle laugh. “You’re not helping.”

He turned toward her then, and His voice dropped into that simple weight she had not been able to shake all day. “I am not here to help you control the moment. I am here to help you stand inside it without leaving.”

Something in her broke open at that. Not publicly. Not in a dramatic way. But enough that she stopped trying to arrange herself into a woman who deserved to be seen. She just stood there breathing through the fear, tired to the bone, carrying flowers that suddenly looked painfully hopeful in her hand.

A train announcement sounded above them.

People shifted.

A family passed with backpacks and an exhausted child half asleep on her father’s shoulder.

Then, through the movement near the entrance, Marisol saw her.

Sofia was taller than she had been the last time they met, though that was not really true. It was only that distance had a way of changing how a mother saw her own child. Her hair was pulled back. Her face looked older in the serious ways young faces sometimes do when life has asked them to become careful too soon. She wore a dark jacket and held her phone in one hand as if it were both shield and habit. She stopped just inside the station and looked around once. Her expression was guarded, not hard. That hurt more.

Marisol’s first impulse was to wave too quickly, smile too brightly, start talking before the distance had even closed.

Jesus did not touch her, but she felt His presence beside her like a hand laid over panic.

So Marisol stayed still.

Sofia’s eyes found her.

And for one suspended second, with the station noise carrying on around them and the whole city still moving outside, mother and daughter looked at each other across the space that all the missed years had made.

Sofia started walking toward her without hurrying. Marisol had imagined this moment in too many wrong ways all day. In some versions her daughter came in angry and sharp. In others she came in soft and ready. The real thing was harder because it was simpler. Sofia just looked careful. That care had cost her something. Marisol felt it before a word was spoken.

“Hi,” Sofia said when she reached her.

Her voice was level. Not warm. Not cruel. Just level.

“Hi,” Marisol said back.

She did not step forward. She did not reach for her. Every instinct in her wanted to repair the distance with motion, but something steadier held her still. The flowers suddenly felt foolish in her hand. “I brought these,” she said, and then immediately hated how awkward it sounded. “You don’t have to take them. I just…”

Sofia glanced at the tulips and the single deep red flower wrapped in paper. A faint change came over her face, almost too small to read. “They’re nice.”

Marisol held them out. Sofia took them, more out of politeness than affection, but she took them. That mattered enough to make Marisol’s throat tighten.

There was a pause after that, the kind that can either become another failure or become the narrow doorway people finally choose to walk through. Jesus stood just behind and to the side, not withdrawing, not inserting Himself. Marisol felt the quiet strength of His nearness and understood that this was the moment He had meant. Not the moment she controlled. The moment she stayed in.

“You said ten minutes,” Marisol managed.

Sofia nodded. “Yeah. My train boards later than I thought. I’ve got maybe twenty now.”

The sentence should not have felt like grace, but it did. Marisol looked at her daughter’s face and saw the child still faintly living inside the woman, saw the old hurt still doing its careful work there too, and for one dangerous second she almost rushed into apology before listening. Old guilt loves monologues because monologues let us manage what others get to say. Jesus had been cutting that instinct down all day.

So Marisol asked, “Do you want to sit somewhere?”

Sofia looked around the station. “Not in here.”

They crossed the street and found a bench near the edge of the plaza where the evening air smelled faintly of rain and train brakes and the city cooling into night. Cars moved past without tenderness. People came and went carrying bags, headphones, plans, fatigue. Seattle did what cities do. It kept going while something fragile tried to live inside it.

For a few seconds neither of them spoke.

Then Sofia said, “I almost didn’t come.”

Marisol nodded once. “I know.”

“You do?”

“I would’ve almost not come too.”

That surprised Sofia enough to make her look over. “Why?”

Marisol gave a tired breath of a laugh. “Because I’ve spent most of the day afraid I’d ruin it before it started.”

Sofia looked back down at the flowers resting across her lap. She turned the stems once in her hand. “That sounds about right.”

The old shame rose again, but this time Marisol did not let it grab the whole conversation. “I’m not going to fight you tonight,” she said. “I’m not going to explain away anything. I’m not going to act like time by itself fixed something I broke.”

Sofia kept her eyes on the flowers. “Then why are we here?”

Marisol opened her mouth and found that the prepared words she had been building all day were suddenly gone. That was terrifying. It was also cleaner. “Because you reached out,” she said finally. “And because I wanted to see you. Not to convince you of anything. I just wanted to see you.”

Sofia let that sit between them. “I’m thinking about moving.”

Marisol felt her whole body go alert. A year ago she would have responded badly. She would have made the moment about herself and called that honesty. She would have said things like Why didn’t you tell me or I’m your mother or You can’t just disappear, as if her title had not once been the very thing Sofia had needed distance from.

Instead she asked, “Where?”

“Portland maybe. Or farther.” Sofia rubbed her thumb against the paper around the bouquet. “A friend of mine has an aunt in Eugene with a place opening up this summer. Nothing’s decided. I just… I wanted to tell you before I did something. Not after.”

Marisol swallowed. The sentence cut in two directions. Sofia was giving her a kind of respect. Sofia was also naming how little certainty existed between them. “Thank you for telling me.”

Sofia gave her a quick look, like she had expected more resistance than that. “That’s it?”

“I don’t know what else I have the right to say first.”

Sofia’s expression changed again, more noticeably this time. It was not softness yet. It was the beginning of her guard having to reconsider what it was guarding against.

“You always say weirdly decent things now,” Sofia said. “It’s confusing.”

Marisol almost smiled. “I say a lot less now. That helps.”

A faint breath of humor moved between them and disappeared, but it left something lighter in its wake.

Sofia leaned back against the bench and stared toward the station windows. “I didn’t call you here just to tell you I might move.”

Marisol waited.

“I’ve been mad at you,” Sofia said. “You know that.”

“Yes.”

“I’ve been more than mad.”

“Yes.”

“I don’t even know if mad is the right word anymore. Sometimes it just feels like there’s this wall in me where you’re concerned. Like I don’t have to think about everything if I keep the wall there.” She paused, jaw tightening. “And then something stupid happens. Somebody at school forgets to show up for a group project, or some guy says he’ll call and doesn’t, or I hear someone slurring words in the grocery store, and all of a sudden I’m thirteen again. I’m waiting outside in the dark. Or I’m at the apartment listening for the way your key hit the lock because I could tell from that sound whether I needed to be invisible.”

Marisol closed her eyes for one second. The air felt cold in her lungs. She did not defend herself. She did not say I know because nobody knows another person’s memory by saying they know. She just listened while her daughter laid down the truth she had carried for years.

Sofia kept going now that she had started. “I hate that you still affect me. I hate that I can be doing fine and then something tiny happens and it all comes back. I hate that people talk about forgiveness like it’s clean. Like you decide one day and then your nervous system magically joins in.”

Marisol turned toward her fully. “It isn’t clean.”

Sofia looked at her hard. “No. It isn’t.”

Rain began again, so light at first it barely registered. People passing by lifted hoods or walked faster. The city around them went on conducting its small transactions of movement and obligation. Jesus was near enough for Marisol to feel but far enough to leave the bench to them. She had the strange sense that He was guarding the moment not by controlling it, but by refusing to let fear own it.

“I don’t need you to forgive me tonight,” Marisol said quietly. “I don’t need you to promise me anything. I’m not asking for that.”

Sofia’s shoulders dropped a little, and Marisol realized how braced her daughter had been against exactly that demand. “Then what are you asking?”

Marisol looked down at her hands. They trembled slightly from fatigue and the effort of not reaching for control. “I’m asking you to hear one thing. Just one. And then you can leave with it or not.”

Sofia gave a small nod.

“When I was in that life,” Marisol said, “I told myself lies that helped me survive being who I was. Not because they were true. Because they kept me from seeing the whole truth at once. I told myself I loved you even when I wasn’t acting like it, and I used that sentence to excuse things love never excuses. I told myself you were resilient, like that made it fine for you to absorb what should have crushed me instead. I told myself I had time. More than anything, I told myself I had time. I was wrong about all of it.” Her voice shook, but she kept going. “The clearest thing I can tell you is this. You were never hard to love. You were not too much. You were not the reason I was broken. You were a child, Sofia. You were a beautiful child, and I failed you while you were loving me the best way you knew how.”

Sofia did not move for several seconds. Her face had gone still in that dangerous way stillness sometimes precedes tears or anger. Marisol forced herself not to fill the silence. Her chest hurt. The rain tapped softly against the bench and darkened the concrete beneath their shoes.

Finally Sofia said, very quietly, “Nobody says it like that.”

“Then they should.”

Sofia laughed once, but it cracked in the middle. She pressed her lips together and looked away. “You don’t get to suddenly be good at this.”

“I know.”

“That’s frustrating.”

“I imagine so.”

Sofia shook her head, and when she looked back there was water in her eyes she had not agreed to. “Do you know what the worst part was?”

Marisol almost answered yes and stopped herself. “No.”

“That I kept hoping anyway.” Sofia stared down at the tulips now, blinking hard. “Every time. Every school thing. Every promise. Every night you said you’d be back. I hated myself for hoping after a while, because it made me feel stupid. But I kept doing it. Kids do that, I guess. They keep handing their hearts back to people who drop them.”

Marisol bent forward and pressed both hands against her knees just to keep herself from breaking into pieces on the bench. The sentence did not accuse more than it revealed. That made it worse. “You were not stupid.”

“I know that now.” Sofia’s voice softened. “I didn’t then.”

Marisol turned and looked at her daughter with the helpless love of someone who knew too late what she had not protected. “I’m so sorry.”

Sofia did not answer right away. When she finally spoke, her voice had lost some of its edge. “I believe you are.”

They sat with that. It was not absolution. It was not a repaired history. It was one true sentence laid carefully between them, and it changed the air enough for both of them to breathe.

After a while Sofia asked, “How long have you been sober now?”

“Six years, three months, and eleven days.”

Sofia looked at her. “You still count every day?”

“Not because I’m proud,” Marisol said. “Because I remember what it costs to stop.”

Sofia nodded slowly, like that answer made more sense to her than a celebratory one would have. “Aunt Elena says you never miss meetings.”

“I try not to.”

“She said you clean at the hospital now.”

“I do.”

“She said people there like you.”

Marisol gave the smallest shrug. “I show up. It turns out that matters more than I used to think.”

Sofia looked past her toward the station again. “It does.”

The rain thickened just enough that they had to move. They crossed under an overhang and stood there with strangers who were sheltering for a minute before continuing wherever they had planned to go. One of those strangers was an older man with two grocery bags and a limp that forced him to set one bag down every few feet. He was trying to keep the paper from splitting in the damp. Jesus stepped forward before Marisol even noticed Him move, took one of the bags without fanfare, and asked where the man was headed.

“Just over to the bus stop,” the man said, defensive in the way people get when help finds them before they ask for it.

Jesus nodded as if the answer were enough. “Then I’ll walk with you.”

The man squinted at Him, looked at the bag in His hand, and then at the bus stop across the street. “Suit yourself.”

It was such an ordinary exchange that Sofia stared. Marisol did too. There was something about seeing Jesus in the smallness of that moment, carrying a damp grocery bag beneath a station overhang while traffic hissed past, that struck both of them deeper than grandeur would have.

“He’s with you?” Sofia asked quietly.

Marisol looked at Jesus, then back at her daughter. She could have said I met Him today and meant one thing. She could have said yes and meant another. Instead she answered with the truth that felt truest. “Yes.”

Sofia frowned, but not because she was mocking her. It was the look of someone sensing that something strange and beautiful might be standing nearby and not yet knowing what to call it. “Who is he?”

Marisol felt a tremor go through her, not from fear now, but from recognition that had been building all day beneath every step and word and silence. She had known it before she could say it. She had felt it before she could bear to name it. The calm authority. The way nothing hidden stayed fully hidden near Him. The way He moved toward shame without flinching and toward pain without feeding on it. The way His sentences seemed simple until they opened like doors inside the heart.

“He’s Jesus,” she said.

Sofia looked at her for a long second, ready perhaps to dismiss that, yet unable to do it because Jesus was at that moment reaching into His own pocket to hand the older man bus fare he pretended not to need. Nothing about Him looked interested in spectacle. He simply looked more real than the rest of the evening.

“That’s not funny,” Sofia said softly.

“I’m not joking.”

Sofia turned back toward Him. “Why would He be here?”

Marisol felt the answer before she formed it. “Because He doesn’t miss quiet things.”

The sentence hung there between them. Sofia’s face shifted again, and Marisol saw the child in her for just a second, the child who had once believed that God saw everything and had then struggled to know what to do with all the things He seemed not to stop.

Jesus came back after seeing the man to the bus stop. He stood under the overhang with them as if the rain had never been an interruption. Sofia met His eyes directly this time, wary and drawn at once. “If you’re really Him,” she said, “then you know I don’t know what to do with that.”

“Yes,” He said.

That was all. No insistence. No demand for immediate belief properly arranged. Just yes.

Sofia folded her arms, more to hold herself than to close herself off. “My mom says weirdly true things around you.”

Jesus smiled faintly. “She has done that without Me too. She only believes she has not.”

Sofia looked down to hide a sudden emotion that nearly became a laugh. Marisol had not heard anyone speak of her with that kind of mercy in years. Not indulgence. Mercy. A telling of the truth that did not pin her forever to the worst of it.

“My train leaves in thirty minutes,” Sofia said after a while.

Jesus nodded.

Sofia looked at her mother again. “There’s a tea place near Uwajimaya I like. I was going to stop there before heading back. You can come if you want.”

The invitation was so modest that it would have looked small to anyone else. To Marisol it felt like the sky opening one careful inch. “I’d like that.”

So the three of them walked south and then west into the Chinatown–International District, where the evening lights were coming on in windows and signs and the rain had polished the sidewalks dark. The neighborhood held that dense, layered life some parts of a city keep better than others. People were closing shop, opening shop, carrying boxes, locking gates, greeting friends, ignoring strangers, arguing softly near doorways, checking watches, smoking under awnings, hurrying home. Nothing in it announced itself as sacred. That was why the sacredness of it mattered.

Inside the tea shop the windows fogged at the corners from warmth. There were only a few tables open. Sofia chose one near the back. Jesus sat with them as naturally as if He had been expected there from the start. They ordered drinks, and while they waited, Sofia turned the paper-wrapped bouquet slowly between her hands.

“I still don’t know if I forgive you,” she said to Marisol.

Marisol nodded. “You don’t have to know tonight.”

“I’m not saying that to punish you.”

“I know.”

“I’m saying it because I’m tired of pretending I’m further along than I am.”

Marisol looked at her daughter and saw not harshness but integrity. “That’s more honest than most people ever get.”

Sofia’s eyes flicked to Jesus, as if checking whether He approved of that answer. He did not give approval like a teacher at a desk. He gave something better. Presence.

“What if I don’t ever get all the way there?” Sofia asked, and though she was looking at Marisol, the question bent toward Him.

Jesus answered. “Forgiveness is not the lie that the wound was small. It is the refusal to let the wound become your only future.”

Sofia was quiet after that. The drinks arrived. Steam rose between them. Outside, headlights passed in blurred bands through the wet window. Inside, cups touched saucers, milk hissed somewhere behind the counter, and someone near the front laughed at a story that had nothing to do with any of them.

“My counselor says something kind of like that,” Sofia said eventually. “Not like that. Less… whatever that was.”

Jesus took no offense at being translated into counseling language. “Then she is helping you.”

Sofia wrapped both hands around her cup. “I’ve been afraid that if I let the wall down, even a little, everything from before gets to rush back in.”

Marisol waited again instead of pleading.

Jesus said, “Walls keep pain out until they keep life out too.”

Sofia stared into her tea. “That sounds true enough to be annoying.”

This time she did laugh, properly, and Marisol felt the sound like sunlight breaking through cloud after days of gray. Not because it solved anything. Because it existed.

They talked after that in a way they had not in years. Not without difficulty, but without the old performance. Sofia asked practical questions first, the kind people reach for when the deeper ones still feel too exposed. What was Marisol’s schedule like now. Did she still live in the same apartment. Was Aunt Elena still helping her with taxes because numbers made her panic. Marisol answered plainly. She did not embellish stability. She did not hide struggle. She did not angle every answer toward proving herself changed. Slowly the conversation widened.

Sofia admitted school was harder than she let on. She said she was tired all the time. She said everyone her age seemed either wildly certain or expertly pretending. She confessed that sometimes she feared becoming her mother and sometimes feared becoming so guarded against that possibility that she would never let anyone close enough to damage her at all. Marisol listened with a tenderness that had ripened through grief. She did not rush to reassure away what ought to be heard fully.

“I used to think adulthood would feel more solid,” Sofia said, eyes on the cup in her hands. “But half the time it just feels like everyone’s improvising with nicer shoes.”

Jesus smiled. “That is often accurate.”

Sofia smiled back before she could stop herself. When she noticed, she looked startled, as if her own face had betrayed a loyalty she had not consciously granted. Then the surprise passed, and she let the expression stay.

At one point Marisol said, “I kept every drawing you made as a kid.”

Sofia looked up sharply. “You did not.”

“I did.”

“Even the horrible horse one?”

Marisol actually laughed then, the sound rusty from disuse in moments that mattered. “Especially the horrible horse one. It looked like a haunted dog.”

Sofia covered her mouth, half scandalized and half delighted. “You told me it was elegant.”

“I lied for art.”

It was such a small exchange, but it did what healing often does when it first becomes visible. It arrived not as a speech but as shared recognition. A real memory. A sentence not built entirely around damage. Marisol could feel how careful it still was. She could also feel that careful was no longer the same thing as closed.

Time kept moving anyway. It always does. Sofia checked her phone and exhaled. “I have to go in a few minutes.”

Marisol felt the ache of that without panicking now. A few minutes was not abandonment. A few minutes was a few minutes.

They rose from the table and stepped back outside. The rain had almost stopped. The air smelled washed and metallic and alive. They walked back toward the station more slowly than before, as if none of them wanted to force the ending into a shape it did not have to take.

Near the entrance, Sofia stopped. She still held the flowers. Some of the petals had loosened slightly from the damp, but the bouquet had survived the evening better than Marisol expected.

“I’m not promising anything huge,” Sofia said. “I don’t want to do that thing where a night feels meaningful and then tomorrow I’m expected to become a different person.”

“I’m not asking you to,” Marisol said.

Sofia nodded. “But I can text you this week.”

Marisol let out a breath that shook. “I’d like that.”

“And if I do move, I’ll tell you before I go.”

“Thank you.”

Sofia looked at her for a moment, then stepped forward and hugged her. It was not long. It was not the full, falling-into-you embrace of a child running home. It was the hug of a young woman testing whether her heart could tell the truth without lying to itself. Marisol held her carefully, like something both beloved and free. When they stepped apart, both of them had tears they were not pretending otherwise about.

Then Sofia turned to Jesus. She did not seem fully comfortable doing that, but sincerity is often uncomfortable at first. “I don’t know what I believe yet,” she said.

He met her with the same steady warmth He had carried since the morning. “I know.”

“But if you really are who she says…”

“Yes.”

Sofia looked down, then back up. “Then don’t let me become hard.”

The city noise kept moving around them. A train horn sounded somewhere farther off. People passed carrying their own burdens and evenings and names. Jesus answered her simply. “Keep bringing Me the places that want to close.”

Tears slipped down Sofia’s face then, quick and embarrassed. She brushed them away with the heel of her hand. “Okay,” she whispered, though it sounded less like an agreement and more like the first breath after one.

She boarded a few minutes later. Marisol and Jesus watched from the platform side as she found a seat by the window. Before the train pulled away, Sofia lifted one hand in a small awkward wave. Marisol lifted hers back. There were no promises in that wave, no guarantees, no rewritten history. There was something better than false certainty. There was truth still choosing not to leave.

When the train disappeared, Marisol stood very still.

The station grew ordinary again in the way places do once a moment has passed through them and left no visible sign except inside the people who lived it. She wiped her face and let out a sound halfway between a laugh and a sob. “I thought if tonight mattered, it would feel bigger.”

Jesus looked at her with quiet kindness. “It was bigger.”

She glanced at Him. “You know what I mean.”

“Yes,” He said. “You expected thunder. Mercy often comes closer than that.”

They began walking again without urgency. The city had entered that hour when lights matter more than daylight and every person seems to be heading either toward rest or away from themselves. They moved north through Pioneer Square, where brick buildings held the damp evening and streetlamps turned the wet sidewalks amber. At Waterfall Garden Park the small cascade was still running, tucked behind its walls like a secret the city had agreed not to ruin. Jesus paused there, and Marisol paused with Him.

The water fell with a sound gentler than the day had been. She listened to it and felt the shape of the hours settling inside her. Harborview. The library. The market. The station. The tea shop. The train. None of it had fixed her life. None of it had erased the years. But something had shifted lower than emotion. She no longer felt like a woman spending every good day trying to outrun the truest thing about her. The truest thing about her was no longer only what she had done wrong. The truest thing was that Jesus had walked beside her through the city without recoiling, without flattering, without letting her hide, and without leaving.

“I kept thinking all day that if I made one wrong move, I’d lose her again,” Marisol said.

Jesus watched the falling water. “You are not holding your daughter together with perfect sentences.”

She let that settle. “Then what am I doing?”

“Learning to love without using fear as a guide.”

Marisol stood there in the damp evening and felt how long fear had been making her choices in the costume of wisdom. It had told her when to speak, when to apologize, when to stay distant, when to overdo tenderness, when to prepare for rejection before anyone had rejected her. Fear had made her life feel responsible. It had also made it cramped.

They left the park and kept walking west until the air changed again and brought the water back into the night. By the time they reached the waterfront, the city had thinned. The day’s noise had not vanished, but it no longer pressed at the edges of every thought. Ferries moved across black water lit by scattered reflections. The wind off Elliott Bay had sharpened. Marisol tucked her hands into her coat and looked out where the lights ended.

“I don’t want to forget this tomorrow,” she said.

“You will not keep it by gripping it,” Jesus answered.

She smiled faintly. “There you go again.”

He looked at her. “What do you think you must remember?”

Marisol was quiet for a long moment. Then she said, “That shame is loud and mercy is not. That doesn’t make shame more true.”

His face softened. “Yes.”

She looked down at the boards beneath their feet, then back at the water. “And that my daughter isn’t the only one who kept hoping.”

“No,” He said. “She is not.”

The sentence moved through her slowly. She had thought hope belonged to the innocent. She had thought those who had done the damage were left mostly with regret and gratitude if they were lucky. But Jesus had spent the day showing her something else. Repentance was not the death of hope. It was hope learning to tell the truth. She could live from there. Not easily every day. Not cleanly at once. But truly.

They walked a little farther in silence. At last Marisol stopped. She knew with a strange certainty that the day was ending, not because there was nothing left to say, but because enough had been given for one day and anything more would begin to feel like possession. She turned to Jesus with the humility of someone who had been found more completely than she knew how to deserve.

“Will I see You tomorrow?” she asked.

He smiled, and in that smile was both nearness and something far beyond the city around them. “I will be no farther than truth.”

Tears rose again. She did not fight them. “I don’t even know how to thank You for today.”

“You already are.”

She let out a small breath, half broken, half healed. “What do I do now?”

“Go home,” He said. “Sleep. Wake. Tell the truth. Stay near Me. Let small mercies remain small when they are small. They are not less holy for it.”

Marisol nodded. The answer was so plain it almost hurt. She had spent years imagining that change would come dressed like drama because the life she had wrecked had been dramatic in all the wrong ways. Jesus was handing her something quieter and harder and better. A faithful tomorrow. Then another. Then another. Not glamorous. Not dazzling. Just real.

She looked away for a second, because the city lights on the bay had blurred through tears. When she looked back, He had moved a few steps away, not vanishing, not performing mystery. Just giving her the dignity of choosing to go on in what He had already given.

Marisol stood there for a while after that, feeling the cold, hearing the water, breathing with less panic than she had at dawn. Then she turned and started toward the bus stop that would take her home. She did not feel finished. She felt alive. There was a difference.

Jesus remained by the water as the night deepened over Seattle. The ferries moved. The wind pressed lightly at His coat. The city that had carried so many hidden burdens through the day now glowed in windows and towers and streets, each light holding someone’s fatigue, someone’s longing, someone’s private war, someone’s hope they would barely admit aloud. He looked toward the buildings, toward the hospital on the hill, toward the library glass catching the last of the evening, toward the market settling into night, toward the station where a young woman sat by a train window with flowers on her lap and thoughts she could no longer keep entirely walled off.

Then, in the quiet at the edge of the water, He bowed His head and prayed.

Your friend, Douglas Vandergraph

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Dance tonight, in this burning night. Queen of the night, star of my eyes, Wake me up with your gaze. Take my soul, Take my heart, Take my mind, love is Blind.

20:29GMT Heya! A couple of days ago, I discovered an artist called 'Beklis Ayon'. There is an accent on the 'o', but my keyboard doesn't have that. Her art is very interesting to me, it struck me when I first saw it in the Tate modern because of just how creepy and unique it is, I feel like I really understand her message. There's something personal that strikes me as I research her more and more, the aura. Maybe it's the eyes. I get told all the time how creepy and awkward my eyes are, how they bulge too much and how if I focus too hard, they look scary. Maybe it's the resemblance I feel towards Princess Sikan. Or maybe, I've had too much wine. I have to go back to hell soon, wish me luck!

-TSWR (PS, don't read HONDA BABY on ao3)

There is a kind of pain that does not come from rebellion or carelessness. It comes when you have already been trying to hold your life together with both hands and life still finds a way to shake you. It comes when you have been praying more, not less. It comes when you have been watching your words, trying to stay kind, trying to do right by people, trying to keep your mind from going dark, and then something hard still lands on your chest. That kind of suffering has its own sound to it. It is quieter than panic but heavier than sadness. It does not always make you cry right away. A lot of the time it just makes you stare at the ceiling a little longer at night and feel tired in a place sleep does not reach. What makes it so hard is not only the pain itself. It is the thought that slips in beside it and asks why this is happening when you are already trying your best.

That question can make even honest people feel ashamed. It can make people feel like they are failing spiritually just because they are confused. A lot of good people think they are supposed to suffer silently if they love God enough. They think real faith should make everything neat inside. They think a mature believer should know how to carry pain without asking too many questions. So they hide the harder thoughts. They clean up the language of their own sorrow. They say they are fine when they are not fine. They thank God with their mouth while feeling wounded in their heart and then wonder why everything inside them feels split in two. The truth is that many people are not struggling because they do not love God. They are struggling because they do love Him and they do not know what to do with the fact that life still hurts this much.

It is one thing to suffer after you ignored every warning and walked straight into a wall. At least then there is a reason you can point to. Cause and effect can be painful but it makes sense. What breaks a person open in a deeper way is when they cannot trace the pain back to some obvious choice. They were trying to be faithful in the middle of ordinary life. They were trying to trust God with their family, their work, their mind, their health, their future, and then something still broke. It might have been a loss you did not deserve. It might have been a prayer that kept going unanswered. It might have been a betrayal that came from someone you loved. It might have been the slow suffering of waking up every day and fighting a private battle no one really sees. What makes that kind of pain so hard is that it does not just hurt your heart. It tempts you to believe that your effort meant nothing.

A lot of us carry a quiet agreement in our heart that we never say out loud. We would never frame it this way in church or in a Bible study or in a conversation where we are trying to sound mature, but it is there all the same. It says that if we do our best, God will make things gentler. If we stay sincere, life will stop hitting quite so hard. If we keep our heart right, God will keep the worst things back. It is not always a proud thought. A lot of the time it comes from exhaustion. It comes from wanting the world to feel safe again. It comes from the childlike part of us that wants goodness to lead to ease. Then suffering comes anyway and the agreement falls apart. Now it is not only your circumstances that hurt. Now your inner picture of how this was supposed to work has cracked too.

That crack is where a lot of hidden disappointment lives. People do not always talk about disappointment with God because it feels dangerous to admit. They would rather say they are confused than say they feel let down. They would rather use careful language than tell the full truth about how lonely it feels when you have been faithful and life still seems merciless. Yet disappointment is often sitting there under the surface doing its work. It is in the way prayer starts to feel careful instead of open. It is in the way you hesitate before asking for anything because you are tired of hoping. It is in the way you read promises now with more caution than joy. It is in the way your heart still turns toward God, but it does so with a limp. You have not walked away. You still believe. You still want Him. But something in you has become quieter, and not in a peaceful way.

That is where this subject becomes more personal than people usually let it be. The hardest suffering is not always loud. Sometimes it is the slow strain of continuing to show up while carrying questions you do not know how to settle. It is waking up and going to work while feeling like your spirit is bruised. It is helping other people while you are running low inside. It is trying to be grateful while something in your life remains painfully unresolved. It is reading Scripture and still feeling tender in the place where relief has not come. It is trying not to become cynical when you see people who care less and seem to have an easier road. It is trying not to compare your private ache with somebody else’s visible ease. It is trying not to let your pain rewrite the whole story of God in your mind.

What makes this even more complicated is that suffering often pulls old wounds into the room with it. The present pain is rarely just the present pain. It lands on top of all the other moments in your life when you already felt unseen, already felt left alone, already felt like you were trying harder than the people around you and still ending up with less peace. Hard seasons have a way of waking up buried things. They bring old fear back to the surface. They stir old rejection. They touch the places where you already wondered if your needs mattered. Then the question about suffering becomes bigger than the current moment. It starts to feel like a pattern. It starts to feel personal. It starts to sound like maybe pain keeps finding you because this is just what your life is. That is when a hard season stops feeling like an event and starts feeling like an identity.

Many people never say that part out loud. They will tell you they are tired. They will tell you they are under pressure. They will say they are walking through a lot right now. What they often will not say is that the suffering has begun to affect the way they see themselves. They have started to wonder if they are the kind of person life keeps overlooking. They have started to wonder if they were built to carry more than other people. They have started to wonder why peace seems to stay just outside their reach. When that happens, pain is no longer just something you experience. It becomes a lens. It starts coloring how you interpret silence, delay, unanswered prayer, and even ordinary setbacks. A late answer feels like neglect. A closed door feels like rejection. A long season feels like proof that you are somehow harder to rescue.

That is why this question matters so much. It is not a cold theological puzzle. It is a heart question. It is the kind of question people ask when they have tried to be good, tried to stay soft, tried to keep trusting, and now feel like their soul is dragging. They are not asking because they want an argument. They are asking because they are tired of hurting. They are asking because they need to know whether there is any way to stay close to God without pretending the pain is small. They are asking because they have already heard the quick answers and none of those answers helped. Quick answers usually make suffering feel lonelier. They rush past the actual ache. They try to explain in a sentence what someone is living with in their body every day. A soul in pain does not need a neat line first. It needs honesty.

Honesty begins with admitting that suffering can make faithful people feel deeply disoriented. There are seasons where you do not doubt God exists, but you do not know what He is doing. There are seasons where you still believe He is good, but you cannot feel that goodness landing anywhere near the thing that hurts. There are seasons where you keep praying because you do not know where else to go, but your prayer has more ache in it than confidence. That does not make you weak. It does not make you ungrateful. It does not mean your faith is fake. It means you are trying to bring a real heart to a real God while living in a real world that wounds people. Sometimes that is as holy as faith gets. Not polished certainty. Not loud triumph. Just honesty that keeps turning toward Him without having all the peace back yet.

There is something else people often miss when they talk about this subject. Trying your best can wear you down in its own way if you are not careful. Not because doing your best is bad, but because many people quietly attach their worth to how well they are holding up. They think the noblest thing they can do is keep pressing forward without admitting how much it costs them. They become dependable to everyone and inaccessible to themselves. They become the one who keeps going. The one who stays composed. The one who knows how to speak faith. The one who remains steady. Then suffering lands and exposes how fragile that whole arrangement was. Now you are forced to face the fact that being strong did not save you from breaking. Being faithful did not protect you from sorrow. Being disciplined did not remove your need to be held by God instead of just performing for Him.

For some people that is the beginning of a quieter and truer faith, though it rarely feels beautiful when it starts. It feels humiliating first. It feels like losing your script. It feels like not being able to say the right things anymore. It feels like praying without eloquence. It feels like opening the Bible and not knowing what to do with the distance between the words and your feelings. It feels like carrying questions you cannot resolve and still waking up with enough tenderness to say, God, I am here. That is not the kind of faith most people celebrate publicly. It does not look impressive. It does not sound victorious. Yet there is something deeply real about the soul that keeps coming to God with no performance left. A stripped down heart is not a failed heart. In some ways it is the first heart that is finally telling the whole truth.

The truth is that suffering reveals where we have confused God with the life we hoped He would give us. That is hard to say because the life we hoped for was often not sinful. It was usually simple. We wanted some rest. We wanted some peace. We wanted the people we love to be okay. We wanted a little relief from carrying so much. We wanted to stop waking up braced for bad news. We wanted the effort we have been making to turn into something softer. None of that is ugly. None of that is wrong. Still, when our hope locks itself onto those things too tightly, pain can make it feel like God Himself is slipping away when really it is our imagined version of safety that is breaking apart. That loss hurts more than people know how to describe. It feels like standing in the ruins of expectations that were never foolish, but still were not promised in the way we thought.

This is why suffering can make people feel older inside. Not older in years, but older in the eyes. There is a certain look that comes into a person when they have hoped hard and been hurt anyway. They still smile. They still care. They still show up. But they are slower to assume things will turn out well. They are slower to speak too confidently. A little caution has entered the room. A little sorrow has taken a chair by the window. That is not always unbelief. A lot of the time it is pain learning how to live beside faith. People carry both more often than they admit. They carry love for God and disappointment. Trust and fatigue. Hope and hesitation. Hunger for Him and fear of being hurt again. Real faith does not mean you never feel those tensions. Real faith often means you stop lying about them.

When I think about the people who suffer this way, I do not think of rebels. I think of tired mothers trying to keep their heart open while the house is heavy. I think of fathers carrying pressure they never learned how to speak about. I think of people sitting in cars before work asking God for strength just to get through the day without falling apart. I think of lonely believers who have been praying for change for years and still have not seen the answer they begged for. I think of people who have made real efforts to heal, to forgive, to grow, to stay faithful, and who still feel like they are moving through mud. I think of the person who loves God and is also deeply discouraged. Those are the people behind this question. Not cynical spectators. Not careless wanderers. People who are trying to keep their soul alive while they hurt.

That is why shallow answers feel cruel even when they are well meant. They tend to speak past the actual experience. They tell you everything is happening for a reason as though reason is the thing your heart needs most. They tell you God is teaching you something as if the lesson is always the main point. They tell you to count it all joy before they have even sat beside your grief for five honest minutes. They offer meaning too fast and presence too slowly. Yet one of the most painful parts of suffering is the loneliness that comes when people rush to explain what they have not really bothered to witness. There is a reason the heart closes when it feels handled instead of seen. There is a reason people often withdraw when they are hurting deeply. They are not always rejecting comfort. Many times they are protecting the last tender parts of themselves from being simplified.

A better place to begin is to admit that suffering does not always arrive with a clean explanation attached to it. There are moments in life where you can trace what happened and learn from it. There are also moments where you cannot do that honestly. Something broke and you do not know why it had to break this way. Someone walked away and you do not know why love was not enough to keep them near. A door stayed closed and you do not know why God did not open it when you begged Him to. There are losses that do not resolve into tidy insight on the timeline we would choose. There are seasons that do not tie themselves into a neat lesson by the end of the chapter. You can force meaning too early if you are desperate enough. Many people do. Yet forced meaning rarely comforts the soul for long. It usually just covers grief with spiritual language and leaves the deeper ache untouched.

It may be that one of the most painful parts of mature faith is learning that trust is not the same thing as having everything explained. There are long stretches where trust looks less like certainty and more like staying. It looks like not running from God just because you do not understand Him right now. It looks like opening your life to Him without pretending you are okay. It looks like letting Him see the bruised places instead of hiding them behind gratitude that has become more performance than truth. It looks like telling Him that you are tired of being strong. It looks like admitting you do not know how much longer you can carry this and still wanting Him in the room. That kind of faith is not loud. It does not draw attention to itself. It is often hidden from almost everyone. Yet heaven may see more beauty in that quiet honesty than in all the polished words we use when life is easy.

There is something tender that begins to happen when a person finally stops arguing with the fact that they are hurt. Not because they have given up, but because they are done denying what is already true. This is not self-pity. It is not spiritual weakness. It is a kind of humility. It says I cannot heal what I keep refusing to name. I cannot bring my whole self to God if I only bring the cleaned up parts. I cannot ask Him to meet me in my suffering if I am still pretending it has not reached that deep. For many people this is the turning point they resist the longest. They would rather solve the pain than sit honestly inside it for even a little while. Yet pain ignored does not become peace. It usually becomes distance. It becomes numbness. It becomes anger that leaks out sideways. It becomes weariness with no language around it. Sometimes the beginning of healing is not relief. It is truth.

The truth may be that you have been carrying more than you were ever meant to carry alone. The truth may be that your best has slowly become your identity and you are exhausted from holding yourself together. The truth may be that you are not just sad about what happened now. You are sad about everything it touched from before. The truth may be that you still love God, but you no longer know how to approach Him without bringing disappointment into the room. There is no point in hiding that from Him. He already sees it all. He sees the weariness you disguise. He sees the small resentments that shame has kept you from naming. He sees the hope that flickers and the fear that steps on it before it can grow. He sees the way you still turn toward Him even now. That matters more than you realize. A heart that still turns toward God while in pain has not lost everything. It may be closer to Him than it feels.

That is where this conversation needs to go next, because the question is not only why suffering happens. The deeper question is what becomes of a soul that keeps suffering while trying to remain faithful. What happens to a heart that is doing its best and still gets bruised? What kind of faith survives when easy answers stop working and old expectations fall apart? That is where the truest part of this subject begins. Not with explanations that stand at a distance, but with the quieter work God does in a person who has stopped pretending and started bringing Him the whole of their ache.

What many people discover in that place is that suffering does not always first change what they believe about God. It changes what they believe they are allowed to bring to Him. Before the pain, they came with gratitude, plans, requests, hopes, and clean thoughts. After the pain deepens, they often start hiding the messier things. They hide the anger because they think it sounds disrespectful. They hide the disappointment because they think it sounds unfaithful. They hide the fear because they think they should be further along by now. They hide the weariness because they have become so used to being the strong one that even God now gets the edited version. What they do not realize is that edited prayer slowly becomes distant prayer. When you keep trimming away the truest parts of your heart, it is hard to feel deeply known. The room grows quieter, but it is not peace. It is caution. It is self-protection wearing religious clothes. It is a soul standing near God while still keeping a hand on the door.

There is a painful kind of loneliness that can grow inside believers who are suffering and still trying to do everything right. It is not only that other people do not fully understand. It is that they themselves no longer know how to speak plainly. They have become fluent in acceptable language and weak in honest language. They know how to say they are trusting God. They know how to say they are walking through a season. They know how to say God is good. Those things may all be true, but they do not always touch the center of the wound. Underneath those sentences might be a much more private cry. It might be that they feel overlooked. It might be that they are hurt that relief has not come. It might be that they are frightened by how numb they have become. It might be that they are tired of waking up with the same burden and acting like that is spiritually normal. A heart can go a long time without truth and still keep functioning. It just cannot stay tender that way.

Tenderness matters more than most people know. Many people measure spiritual strength by how little pain seems to affect them. They think maturity means remaining untouched. Yet some of the strongest souls are the ones that have been hit hard and have still refused to turn into stone. They are not always cheerful. They are not always impressive. They may be slower now. They may be quieter. They may need more time to recover from things than they used to. Yet there is still softness in them. They still care. They still grieve. They still notice when others are hurting. They still bring their tired heart to God instead of shutting it down completely. That kind of softness costs something. It costs you when you have been disappointed. It costs you when people misunderstand your pain and give you slogans instead of presence. It costs you when you are tempted to protect yourself by becoming colder than you really are. The soul that stays tender after suffering has fought a battle most people never see.

I think there are seasons when suffering exposes not only our wounds but the false jobs we have given ourselves. Many people quietly believe it is their job to make sense of everything before they can rest. They think peace must be earned through understanding. They go over every conversation, every closed door, every unanswered prayer, every silence, trying to find the missing piece that will finally let their heart unclench. Yet there are pains that do not yield to analysis. There are losses that stay painful even after you understand as much as you possibly can. There are seasons where you can gather every detail, trace every event, name every pattern, and still feel the sorrow sitting there. It is humbling to realize that some suffering remains because it is suffering, not because you have failed to decode it. The heart can wear itself out trying to solve what it really needs help carrying. That is one reason people become so tired. They are not only living through pain. They are trying to master it so they do not have to feel helpless. That effort becomes its own burden.

Helplessness is one of the hardest feelings for people who are sincere. It threatens the image they have built of themselves as responsible, faithful, steady people. It forces them to face the fact that love, effort, discipline, and prayer do not give them control over every outcome. You can do your part and still watch something fall apart. You can seek God and still find yourself in a season you never would have chosen. You can be careful and still get wounded. There is grief in that. Not just grief over the event itself, but grief over your own limits. The older many people get, the more they begin to understand that being good at carrying life is not the same thing as being able to keep life from breaking your heart. That realization can either harden a person or deepen them. It depends on whether they let helplessness drive them into bitterness or into a truer dependence on God.

That dependence does not always feel noble when it begins. It often feels embarrassing. It feels like being reduced. It feels like finding out you are more fragile than you wanted to believe. It feels like your usual strengths are not enough for this season. A lot of people resist that stage because they have spent years building an identity around competence. They are the one who knows how to endure. The one who figures it out. The one who keeps moving. The one who is there for everybody else. Yet suffering has a way of quietly taking the tools out of your hand and showing you that survival itself is not the same thing as peace. It shows you that you can be outwardly functional and inwardly worn thin. It shows you that what you called strength may have partly been fear in disguise. Fear of slowing down. Fear of feeling too much. Fear of admitting need. Fear of discovering that under all your faithful effort is a human being who wants to be comforted.

There is no shame in wanting comfort. That should not have to be said, but for many people it does. Somewhere along the way they started believing that comfort was for weaker people. They do not mind giving it, but they struggle receiving it. They know how to sit with someone else in pain. They know how to show tenderness to another person who is breaking. They just do not know how to hold that same posture toward themselves. So when suffering comes, they become hard with their own heart. They tell themselves to get perspective. They tell themselves to be grateful. They tell themselves other people have it worse. They tell themselves to stop feeling so much. They rush to correct themselves before compassion ever gets a chance to arrive. Then they wonder why their soul feels so tired. It feels tired because it has been asked to survive on pressure instead of mercy.

God is not like that with us, though many people imagine He is. They imagine Him standing at a distance with folded arms waiting for them to become less emotional, less needy, less affected, less confused. They imagine Him disappointed by the very weakness He already knew would be part of being human. They imagine that if they really trusted Him, they would stop aching so much. Yet the life of faith is not a process of becoming less human. It is a process of bringing our full humanity into the presence of God instead of hiding it from Him. Grief, confusion, disappointment, and weariness do not shock Him. Need does not repel Him. A trembling heart is not too messy for Him. If anything, one of the quiet tragedies in many people’s spiritual life is that they spend years hiding from God in the very places where He most wants to meet them. Not because He loves weakness for its own sake, but because He knows that truth is the doorway through which real comfort enters.

Real comfort is different from quick relief. Relief says the pain is gone for the moment. Comfort says you are not alone in it. Relief changes circumstances. Comfort steadies a heart. Relief is wonderful when it comes, but it does not always come when we ask for it. Comfort can be present even while the hard thing remains. That matters because some of the deepest suffering people carry is not something that vanishes after one prayer or one insight. Some burdens are slow. Some losses leave a long echo. Some disappointments take time to stop bleeding into everything else. If a person thinks God is only near when relief arrives, they may miss the quieter ways He is holding them in the meantime. Sometimes His nearness looks like not letting your heart die. Sometimes it looks like giving you enough grace to endure another day without losing yourself completely. Sometimes it looks like meeting you in the very honesty you were afraid would offend Him.

I have seen people grow closer to God not when life finally made sense, but when they finally stopped trying to make their pain acceptable before bringing it to Him. They stopped rehearsing the polished version. They stopped acting like every prayer needed to land on a triumphant note. They started speaking like sons and daughters instead of performers. They started saying they were disappointed. They started saying they were worn out. They started saying they did not know how much more they could take. They started saying they needed help in more than a general way. That shift may sound small, but it can change everything. There is a difference between praying at God and praying with your actual heart. One keeps control. The other risks relationship. One hides behind right words. The other lets itself be seen. That second kind of prayer can feel frightening at first because it leaves no place to hide. Yet it is often the place where love begins to feel real again.

You may have noticed that suffering often creates a strange hunger for what is genuine. Things that once felt impressive stop feeling nourishing. The louder forms of certainty lose some of their appeal. Cliches start sounding empty. Performance grows harder to tolerate. You find yourself longing for words that have lived somewhere. You want honesty. You want truth that has breath in it. You want hope that has walked through some fire. Pain does that. It reduces your appetite for polished noise and makes you crave substance. In a hidden way, that can be grace. Not because suffering itself is beautiful, but because it pushes you away from what is hollow. It teaches you to recognize the difference between spiritual appearance and spiritual reality. It makes you value gentleness over image, presence over explanation, truth over polish, quiet faithfulness over dramatic display. A wounded heart often sees through things it once admired. That loss of illusion is painful, but it can also make room for something more real.

There is another part of this many people quietly experience. Suffering can make them feel guilty for still having needs after they have already been trying so hard. They tell themselves they should be stronger by now. They think that since they have come this far, they should not still be this affected. They feel ashamed that one more disappointment can still hit so deep. Yet effort does not erase need. The fact that you have been trying does not remove your humanity. Sometimes the people who are trying the hardest are the ones most in need of gentleness because they have been carrying more than anyone knows. They have been showing up while depleted. They have been obeying while tired. They have been loving while under strain. They have been pressing forward with private weights no one sees. When suffering comes on top of that, of course it hurts. Of course it shakes them. There is no shame in reaching the edge of what you can carry. That edge is where many people finally learn that grace is not a reward for the strong. It is the lifeline of the honest.

I think one of the more beautiful things God does in a long, hard season is He slowly untangles our worth from our outcomes. In easier times, many people tie their value to how well things are going, how steady they feel, how useful they are, how much progress they can see. Then suffering interrupts all of that. It keeps them from feeling productive in the ways they prefer. It limits them. It humbles them. It shows them how quickly identity built on performance can begin to tremble. This can feel devastating at first, because the old measures stop working. Yet beneath that loss is a better invitation. It is the invitation to be loved without earning the feeling of being lovable. It is the invitation to discover that God’s care is not based on your ability to keep everything moving. It is the invitation to stop treating your hard season like proof that you are failing and begin seeing it as a place where deeper belonging can grow.

Belonging matters more than answers in some seasons. A person can survive mystery better than they can survive abandonment. That is why the enemy of the soul works so hard to make pain feel personal in the worst way. He wants suffering to feel like rejection. He wants delay to feel like neglect. He wants hardship to feel like evidence that you are outside the circle of care. If he can do that, pain becomes larger than pain. It becomes an accusation. It begins speaking into your identity. It tells you that you are harder to love, slower to rescue, easier to overlook. That lie has undone many people more than the suffering itself. Not because the pain was small, but because the lie made it feel final. The truth is that God’s nearness is not measured by how quickly every wound closes. Sometimes His nearness is what keeps your soul from agreeing with the lie that your life is disposable. Sometimes His presence is the hidden force preserving your heart while the season itself remains unresolved.

When you live long enough, you begin to see that some of the most changed people are not the people who got the easiest road. They are the people who walked through some dark valleys and kept letting God teach them how to remain open. They are usually gentler than before. They are less arrogant about life. They are slower to judge. They are more careful with other people’s pain. They do not rush to explain suffering because they know what it feels like to sit inside a night that would not move. They have learned that a person can be full of faith and still feel undone. They have learned that tears are not the opposite of trust. They have learned that some victories are invisible for a long time. A softer heart in a harder life is a kind of miracle. It does not get celebrated the way outward success does, but heaven sees it. God sees it. A person who keeps love alive in the middle of pain has not lost nearly as much as the world thinks.

That does not mean suffering becomes easy to welcome. No honest person wants to romanticize it. There are things you will never call good in themselves. There are losses you would undo in a second if you could. There are nights you would not choose again. There are prayers you still wish had been answered differently. Faith does not require you to call the wound beautiful. It asks something more difficult and more human than that. It asks whether you will let God stay near even where life has been ugly. It asks whether you will keep talking to Him from the real place instead of the rehearsed one. It asks whether you will let Him care for the version of you that feels tired, disappointed, afraid, and small. People sometimes imagine mature faith means rising above those feelings. Many times it means bringing those feelings into the light and refusing to let them become your secret life.

The secret life of pain is where many people slowly disappear from themselves. Outwardly they remain present. Inwardly they withdraw. They become efficient but not alive. They become functional but not free. They stop expecting comfort. They stop believing peace could actually reach them. They settle into endurance without intimacy. That is not the kind of survival God wants for His children. He is not interested in keeping you barely standing while your interior world grows colder and more disconnected. He cares about the hidden person you are becoming in the middle of this. He cares whether your heart remains accessible to love. He cares whether your pain is turning into truth or hardening into self-protection. He cares whether you are learning to receive what He gives, not only accomplish what you think is expected of you. That is one reason suffering can become a crossroads. It will often reveal whether your relationship with God has room for tenderness or only for duty.

Duty can carry a person for a while. It can keep habits in place. It can keep you reading, praying, serving, staying disciplined, showing up. Those things matter. Yet duty alone cannot heal a bruised soul. At some point the heart needs affection, not only instruction. It needs nearness, not only direction. It needs to know that God is not simply managing its growth but caring for its ache. Some people resist that because affection feels vulnerable. They would rather receive assignments than tenderness. Assignments keep things clean. Tenderness touches the places they have kept guarded. Yet if you never let God love you where you are hurting, you will keep trying to become strong enough to deserve what He has been offering freely all along. That road is exhausting. It leaves people endlessly working toward rest instead of receiving rest as part of the way forward.

One of the quieter changes that can happen in a hard season is that you begin to stop asking only, Why is this happening, and you begin to ask, What would it look like to stay honest and loved here. That second question does not solve the first one, but it changes the air around it. It moves the focus from explanation to relationship. It makes space for the possibility that God may be doing something deeper than giving you immediate clarity. He may be teaching your heart how to live without disguises. He may be teaching you that being held is not the same thing as being spared from every wound. He may be drawing you into a faith that is less based on outcomes and more rooted in communion. That kind of faith is usually quieter than the faith people advertise. It does not always produce dramatic language. It often looks like staying. It looks like speaking truth to God on ordinary days. It looks like receiving enough mercy to keep going without pretending that going is easy.

You do not need to become a mystery to yourself in order to survive suffering. You do not need to harden every tender place just because life has been rough. You do not need to punish your own heart for being affected. You do not need to turn honest questions into moral failures. You can tell the truth about how hard this has been. You can tell the truth about how weary you are. You can tell the truth about where hope has become difficult. You can tell the truth about wanting relief. None of that disqualifies you from closeness with God. If anything, it may be the very path back into it. He is not asking you to meet Him as a cleaned up version of yourself. He is asking you to come as the person who is actually living this life. The person who is trying. The person who is hurting. The person who still turns toward Him, even if it is with trembling hands.

That matters more than you know. There is a holy stubbornness in the soul that keeps turning toward God while suffering has not yet loosened its grip. It may not feel impressive, but it is precious. It may not look like triumph, but it is faithful. A person who still reaches for Him after disappointment, after delay, after weariness, after nights of silence, is not a small thing. That is not a weak believer. That is someone whose faith has kept breathing under pressure. God sees that. He sees the effort no one else notices. He sees the days when you kept going with almost nothing in the tank. He sees the restraint it took not to give your pain the final word. He sees the tears you never explained to anyone. He sees the prayer that barely came out. He sees the way you still wanted Him in the room even when you did not know what to say.

Maybe that is where you are right now. Maybe you are not in a dramatic collapse. Maybe you are just quietly tired. Maybe you are still functioning, still doing what needs to be done, still keeping promises, still trying to honor God, but inwardly you feel worn. Maybe you are carrying a disappointment that has lasted longer than you ever thought it would. Maybe you are weary of hearing easy lines from people who do not know what this has cost you. Maybe you are trying to keep your heart soft and finding that harder than anyone would guess. If so, let me say something plainly. Your pain does not make you less sincere. Your confusion does not make you less faithful. Your need does not make you less spiritual. You do not have to earn the right to be comforted. You do not have to become easier to love before God comes near. He is already near. Sometimes the hardest thing is not persuading Him to come close. It is believing He is gentle enough to meet you exactly where you are.

If this season has done anything good, maybe it is this. Maybe it has shown you how little performance can actually carry a human soul. Maybe it has shown you that the deepest part of you does not need another script. It needs truth. It needs mercy. It needs a God who is not frightened by unvarnished sorrow. It needs the kind of love that can sit with you while answers remain incomplete. That kind of love is not weak because it does not rush. It is strong enough to stay. It is patient enough to witness your pain without trying to erase your humanity. It is faithful enough to keep holding you while your heart learns again how to rest. In a strange way, suffering can strip away the image of God you could manage and leave you face to face with the God who is real. Not distant. Not irritated. Not cold. Real. Present. Compassionate. Strong enough for the truth.

So if you are trying your best and life still hurts, do not add self-condemnation to the weight you are already carrying. Do not decide that your tears mean you are doing faith wrong. Do not let this hard chapter convince you that God has stepped away or that your effort was meaningless. Sometimes your best does not prevent suffering. Sometimes your best is what keeps you turned toward God while suffering does its worst. That is not nothing. Sometimes the quiet victory is that pain did not get to make you cruel. Sometimes the miracle is that you are still here with an open Bible, a tired heart, and enough honesty left to whisper one more prayer. Sometimes growth looks less like feeling strong and more like refusing to disappear. Stay there. Stay near Him in the truest way you can. Speak plainly. Rest when you can. Let mercy be more believable than accusation. Let God be kinder than the voice in your head that tells you to toughen up. This season is not the whole story of your life, and this pain is not the truest thing about you.

You are still loved in it. You are still seen in it. You are still being held in ways you may not understand yet. One day you may look back and see that the deepest work was not happening around you as much as within you. It was the work of learning that God can be trusted with the parts of you that do not shine. It was the work of discovering that being weary did not make you unwanted. It was the work of finding out that His presence can survive your questions. It was the work of becoming honest enough to be healed where you actually live instead of where you pretend to live. Until that becomes clearer, keep bringing Him the real thing. Keep bringing Him the unedited heart. Keep bringing Him the ache, the fatigue, the disappointment, the longing, and the little bit of hope you still have. That is enough for today. The God who meets people in truth knows what to do with that.

Your friend, Douglas Vandergraph

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Ich muss gestehen, dass ich bei diesem Text lange gezögert habe, wo ich anfangen soll.

Die Worte fehlen nicht. Sondern weil das, was ich eigentlich sagen will, so einfach ist, dass ich Angst habe, es durch zu viel Reden kaputtzumachen.

Also mache ich es kurz und stelle die These gleich an den Anfang: Die Leere, die sich bei vielen Menschen irgendwann meldet, nachdem sie materiell angekommen sind, aber innerlich die Leere. Sie ist der Nullpunkt, an dem das andere, tiefere Leben überhaupt erst anfangen kann. Der Rest dieses Textes ist eigentlich nur die lange Version dieser einen Zeile.

Ich schreibe das aus zwei Gründen.

Erstens: Ich habe diese Leere selbst erlebt. In verschiedenen Formen, über längere Zeit. Und ich habe lange gebraucht, um zu verstehen, was sie eigentlich wollte. Ich habe sie zuerst bekämpft. Dann versucht, sie wegzuoptimieren. Dann mit Projekten zugedeckt. Und irgendwann habe ich aufgehört und das war der Moment, in dem sich etwas verändert hat.

Zweitens: Ich lese seit vielen Jahren Texte, die genau über diese Sache reden. Zwei davon will ich hier einweben, weil sie mir wirklich geholfen haben. Der eine ist ein Korpus namens Das Gesetz des Einen, eine Sammlung eigenartiger Gespräche aus den frühen 1980er Jahren. Der andere ist Laozis Tao Te King, das rund 2.500 Jahre älter ist. Beide sagen im Kern dasselbe. Sie sagen es nur anders.

Ich nenne die Quellen direkt, weil ich finde, man sollte nicht um sie herumschleichen. Wenn ein Gedanke trägt, trägt er auch, wenn man weiß, wo er herkommt.

Warum überhaupt “Nullpunkt”

In der Physik ist der Nullpunkt nie wirklich Null.

Das wissen die meisten, die mal bei irgendwas mit Quantenmechanik vorbeigeschaut haben. Ein System kann theoretisch bis zum absoluten Nullpunkt heruntergekühlt werden, und trotzdem bleibt da noch Energie. Nullpunktenergie nennt man das. Es ist kein Messfehler und kein Artefakt, es ist eine Eigenschaft der Realität selbst: Auch in der absoluten Ruhe ist noch etwas, das schwingt.

Ich finde das Bild hilfreich, weil es genau beschreibt, was viele Menschen spüren, wenn sie ihre materiellen Ziele erreicht haben. Sie sind zur Ruhe gekommen. Aber anstatt das als Fülle zu erleben, erleben sie da unten etwas, das weiter schwingt. Eine Unruhe im Stillstand. Ein leises, nicht abstellbares Signal.

Das kann man als Defekt interpretieren. Oder als Hinweis darauf, dass da unten etwas ist, das die ganze Zeit schon da war und nur deshalb übersehen wurde, weil die Oberfläche so geschäftig war.

Laozi und das Rad

Laozi hat für diesen Punkt ein Bild, das er in verschiedenen Varianten wiederholt, weil er offenbar gemerkt hat, dass wir es nicht auf Anhieb verstehen.

Er sagt: Schau dir ein Rad an. Speichen, Nabe, Felge. Wir denken, das Wesentliche sei das Feste, das Material, die Substanz. Aber ein Rad dreht sich nicht wegen der Speichen. Es dreht sich wegen des leeren Raums in der Mitte, durch den die Achse läuft. Ohne diese Leere geschieht überhaupt nichts.

Derselbe Gedanke mit einem Krug: Was ihn brauchbar macht, ist nicht der Ton, der Hohlraum, den der Ton umschließt. Und mit einem Zimmer: Gelebt wird nicht in den Wänden, sondern in dem Raum, den sie einschließen.

Laozis Pointe sinngemäß: Das Vorhandene macht nützlich. Das Nicht-Vorhandene macht wirksam.

Wenn du das ernst nimmst, dann ist die Leere, die du an einem sonnigen Sonntagnachmittag irgendwo zwischen zwei Projekten spürst, vielleicht gar nicht das Gegenteil deines Lebens. Vielleicht ist sie die Nabe. Der Nullpunkt. Der Ort, um den sich alles andere überhaupt erst organisieren kann.

Warum die Leere dich eventuelle eingeholt hat

Jetzt wird es konkreter.

Menschen, die irgendwann an diesen Punkt kommen, haben fast immer eine ähnliche Biografie. Sie haben gelernt, dass Disziplin trägt. Dass Fokus Ergebnisse bringt. Dass Wille Wirklichkeit formt. Das ist keine Einbildung, das stimmt tatsächlich. Genau mit diesen Eigenschaften haben sie erreicht, was sie erreicht haben.

Nur haben diese Eigenschaften einen Wirkungsbereich. Und der hat eine Grenze.

Im Gesetz des Einen gibt es einen kurzen Dialog, der mich seit Jahren begleitet. Jemand zählt vor seinem Gesprächspartner alles auf, was er an spirituellen Werkzeugen kennt. Disziplin, Selbsterkenntnis, Willensstärkung und fragt, ob das eigentlich alles sei. Die Antwort kommt fast unterbrechend:

Das ist Methode. Das ist nicht das Herz.

Sechs Worte. Aber sie sitzen.

Die Aussage ist nicht, dass Methode schlecht sei. Methode ist großartig. Methode baut Brücken, heilt Körper, führt Firmen, schreibt Bücher, zieht Kinder groß. Alles, was wir in der äußeren Welt hinkriegen, kriegen wir mit Methode hin.

Die Aussage ist: Es gibt einen Bereich im Menschen, den Methode nicht erreicht. Nicht weil die Methode zu schwach wäre, sondern weil sie dort nichts zu tun hat. Du kannst dich tracken, optimieren, verfeinern und dabei an dem Ort vorbeilaufen, um den es eigentlich geht.

Das Herz ist so ein Ort. Die Stille ist einer. Und auch die Leere, von der wir hier reden.

Einatmen und Ausatmen

Hier wird Laozi nochmal wichtig.

Die westliche Ratgeberliteratur liebt Gegensätze. Alt gegen neu. Falsch gegen richtig. Das war früher, das ist jetzt, du musst umschalten. So funktioniert Buchmarketing, aber so funktionieren Menschen nicht.

Laozi denkt anders. Bei ihm gibt es keine Gegensätze, die einander abschaffen. Es gibt Pole, die einander bedingen. Tag und Nacht. Yang und Yin. Einatmen und Ausatmen. Keiner davon ist der Bessere. Keiner kann ohne den anderen.

Dein bisheriges Leben war vielleicht ein langes, konsequentes Einatmen. Ziele setzen, erreichen, wachsen, bauen. Das war richtig. Das bleibt richtig. Das wird auch wiederkommen.

Aber irgendwann braucht jedes Einatmen das Ausatmen, sonst platzt der Mensch.

Was sich jetzt als Leere meldet, ist vielleicht einfach das Ausatmen, das du dein ganzes Leben lang aufgeschoben hast.

Und das Eigenartige am Ausatmen ist, dass du es mit den Mitteln des Einatmens nicht erreichst. Du kannst nicht intensiver einatmen, um besser auszuatmen. Du kannst nur aufhören, weiter einzuatmen. Dann passiert das Ausatmen von selbst.

Was passiert, wenn du aufhörst?

Ich meine das ernst. Was passiert wirklich, wenn du einen Nachmittag lang aufhörst? Nicht bewusst entschleunigst. Nicht produktiv ruhst. Nicht auf einer Yogamatte liegst und innerlich an morgen denkst. Sondern wirklich: aufhörst.

Bei den meisten, die ich kenne, kommt als Erstes Panik. Dann Unruhe. Dann der Impuls, doch wieder etwas zu tun. Und erst nach dieser ganzen Welle, wenn man sie einfach ziehen lässt, kommt etwas anderes zum Vorschein. Etwas Leises. Etwas, das wir unser Leben lang übertönt haben, weil wir beschäftigt waren.

Wu wei

Es gibt im Tao ein Wort, das sich schwer übersetzen lässt: wu wei. Wörtlich: Nicht-Handeln. Gemeint ist aber nicht Faulheit und nicht Resignation.

Wu wei ist das Handeln, das nicht gegen den Strom drückt. Ein Segler, der den Wind nicht bekämpft, sondern mit ihm fährt. Eine Wunde, die heilt, weil der Körper in Ruhe gelassen wird. Ein Gespräch, das sich ergibt, weil man aufhört, es zu steuern.

Wu wei ist das Gegenmittel gegen eine Erschöpfung, die viele erreichte Menschen kennen, ohne sie benennen zu können. Diese Erschöpfung kommt nicht vom vielen Tun. Sie kommt vom ständigen Tun gegen. Gegen den Widerstand. Gegen die Zeit. Gegen die innere Unruhe. Gegen die Leere.

Wenn du aufhörst, gegen deine Leere anzukämpfen, passiert etwas Seltsames: Sie wird weicher. Sie wird weniger bedrohlich, als sie aus der Entfernung war. Und manchmal, das ist meine eigene Erfahrung, merkst du irgendwann, dass sie dir die ganze Zeit etwas mitteilen wollte, das du nur deshalb nicht hören konntest, weil du zu laut warst.

Das, was unter allem liegt

Im Gesetz des Einen steht ein Satz, der mich beim ersten Lesen geärgert hat, weil er zu einfach klang. In meiner Übertragung:

In jedem noch so kleinen Teil von dir wohnt das Ganze. Mit all seiner Kraft.

Das ist Poesie, dachte ich damals. Hübsch, aber unpraktisch.

Inzwischen denke ich anders darüber. Der Satz sagt nämlich etwas sehr Konkretes: Was dir in der Leere fehlt – die Fülle, der Sinn, das Ganze – ist keine Substanz, die dir zugefügt werden müsste. Es ist etwas, das unter Schichten liegt. Du hast es nicht verloren. Du hast es nur, irgendwann im Lauf deines sehr bemühten Lebens, mit anderem zugedeckt.

Wenn das stimmt und ich sage bewusst wenn, du musst das nicht glauben, um etwas davon zu haben, dann verändert sich die Richtung. Wenn das Ganze bereits in dir wohnt, ist die naheliegende Bewegung nicht, weiter zu suchen. Sondern still zu werden. Lange genug, dass sich das, was unten liegt, langsam hochtasten kann.

Und die Leere ist genau der Raum, in dem das möglich wird. Sie ist kein Feind dieser Bewegung. Sie ist ihre Voraussetzung.

Was deine Sehnsucht wirklich will

Noch ein Satz aus denselben Texten, den ich mag, weil er so unpathetisch ist:

Sehnsucht ist der Schlüssel zu dem, was du empfängst. Vielleicht verstehst du deine Sehnsucht nicht.

Der zweite Teil ist der wichtige.

Vielleicht hast du lange gedacht, du wolltest Erfolg. Freiheit. Sicherheit. Anerkennung. Ruhe. Und dann hast du genau das bekommen und etwas in dir sagt leise: Das war es nicht.

Das heißt nicht, dass du dich geirrt hast. Es heißt, dass die Oberflächenschicht deiner Sehnsucht die war, die du benennen konntest. Darunter lag eine tiefere Schicht, die keinen Namen hatte. Die konnte sich nur als diffuses mehr bemerkbar machen, und dieses mehr wurde in deiner Sprache zu mehr erreichen. Was du aber wirklich wolltest, war etwas anderes. Etwas, das sich mit Erreichen nicht kriegen lässt.

Die Leere ist der Moment, in dem diese tiefere Schicht zu Wort kommt. Sie ist nicht wütend auf das, was du bekommen hast. Sie sagt nur: Jetzt bin ich dran.

Was wäre, wenn du sie einmal fragen würdest, was sie will? Nicht taktisch, nicht weil du es hinterher in ein Journal eintragen willst. Sondern aus echter Neugier. Und was wäre, wenn die Antwort nicht sofort käme und du das aushieltst?

Drei Bewegungen, keine Lösungen

Ich schreibe das hier nicht, weil ich dir einen Weg verkaufen möchte. Ich weiß nicht, was für dich richtig ist. Ich kenne deine Leere nicht. Ich kenne nur meine eigene, und ich schreibe aus dem, was sie mich gelehrt hat, langsam, widerwillig, selten in geraden Linien.

Wenn du an dem Punkt bist, den dieser Text beschreibt, biete ich dir am Ende drei kleine Bewegungen an. Keine Lösungen. Eher Haltungen, die du ausprobieren kannst, ohne dass etwas davon abhängt.

Die Erste: Lass die Leere einmal neben dir sitzen, ohne sie in etwas verwandeln zu wollen. Sitz mit ihr wie mit einem stillen Gast, der noch nicht entschieden hat, ob er reden will. Frag sie nichts. Arbeite nichts auf. Lies keinen Ratgeber. Beobachte einfach, was nach zehn Minuten passiert. Nach einer Stunde. Nach einem Abend.

Die Zweite: Hör auf, dein bisheriges Leben gegen dein zukünftiges auszuspielen. Dein Wille, deine Disziplin, deine Systeme, die bleiben ein Teil von dir. Sie werden wiederkommen, wenn sie gebraucht werden. Im Moment dürfen sie ausruhen. Einatmen und Ausatmen gehören zum gleichen Atem, und du bist weder zur Hälfte das eine noch zur Hälfte das andere. Du bist beides.

Die Dritte und wichtigste: An dir ist nichts zu reparieren. Ich weiß, das ist schwer zu glauben, wenn man jahrzehntelang gelernt hat, sich selbst als Optimierungsprojekt zu betrachten. Aber es stimmt. Du bist nicht kaputt. Du bist am Ende einer Phase. Die nächste beginnt, sobald du das, was ist, eine Weile unbearbeitet neben dir sitzen lässt.

Und irgendwann, wenn du wirklich still geworden bist, merkst du vielleicht, dass diese Leere, die du so lange für deinen Feind gehalten hast, einfach ein Raum war. Ein Raum, in dem jemand auf dich gewartet hat, der sich in dem ganzen Lärm deines erfolgreichen Lebens nie hat zeigen können.

Vielleicht bist das du selbst. Vielleicht ist es etwas, für das du noch keinen Namen hast.

So oder so: Dieser Nullpunkt ist kein Ende. Er ist ein Anfang. Und das Einzige, was man tun muss, um ihn als solchen zu erleben, ist, aufzuhören, ihn für einen Fehler zu halten.

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Zu den Quellen, die ich oben schon erwähnt habe: Die kursiv gesetzten Sätze sind meine freie Übertragung aus dem Gesetz des Einen, einer Gesprächssammlung aus den Jahren 1981 bis 1984. Laozis Tao Te King ist rund zweieinhalbtausend Jahre älter und sagt in wesentlichen Punkten erstaunlich Ähnliches. Wer neugierig geworden ist, findet den Weg zu den Originalen leicht selbst.

Today's MLB game of choice has the Cincinnati Reds playing the Tampa Bay Rays, and has a start time of 5:40 PM CDT.

And the adventure continues.

I hope that each of you have a supportive mentor. This should be a special time at the start of your career where you get to meet students for the first time in this role. Dress professional, bring a notebook, and I hope you get a chance to observe for a few days to feel comfortable in the room. Observe everything in the classroom from the student-teacher interactions, the student behavior, the teacher’s rapport with the student, classroom management style, lesson delivery and pacing, forms of assessment, etc. There is so much more to take in but getting comfortable and getting your confidence is the first big step. You may feel nervous and have anxiety about teaching a new group of students.

With my student teachers, I recommend walking around when students are working independently to start building comfort for both you and them. Getting to know them will make this first lesson go so much easier. Greeting the students and some small talk will go very far with them. Offering help or assistance is another great idea to help you feel more comfortable. So get on your feet and ask the cooperating teacher if it’s okay to walk the aisles and check out their work. Keep a smile on your face.

Ask your cooperating teacher to start small. Ask if you could begin with the Do Now activity. This 3-5 minute review at the beginning of class is a short way to start building your confidence. Watch your cooperating teacher perform it a few times before trying it yourself. Don’t be afraid to make a mistake. It happens. Hopefully the cooperating teacher is okay with you trying their own before you start creating your own.

After a week or so, start to prepare a lesson under the guidance of your cooperating teacher. Now every cooperating teacher is different. Some will give you all the support in the world, and others will expect you to be a great teacher with new knowledge of the teaching world. For me, I was clueless and needed a lot of support. Ask the teacher what topic or content should be taught. If you can get a topic, great! If not, I recommend picking your own topic. If you don’t know what to teach, please get a copy of the state learner standards in your content and try addressing one of the standards or learner objectives. Once you understand the learner objective, start preparing your lesson.

If you are unfamiliar with the standard or have to learn the content yourself first, spend time on YouTube channels or Google researching and understanding the topic. I have been there plenty of times. This might be a reeducation for yourself, or maybe the content is entirely new.

Break your lesson down by the following structure: Do Now (anticipatory set), instructional portion (keep short 10-12 minutes), guided practice (student practice activity), and finally independent practice portion of the lesson. This is the I Do, We Do, You Do method of teaching. Your lesson should close with some kind of exit ticket. Guided Practice could be 10 minutes. Independent Practice could be 10-15 minutes. An exit ticket at the end could be another 5 minutes. Nailing your timing will take time and an eye on the clock.

Exit Tickets function to help you gain a read on your students grasping of the new content. I like to do thumbs up, down, or sideways in front of their chests or 1, 2, 3 (with their fingers) by their shoulders with a multiple choice question on the board. A simple multiple choice question with an ABC answer choice. Selecting students in different parts of the room is effective to if ending the class on a question. Work the left side, the center, and the right side of your class by maybe asking the same question. You would think asking the same question is pointless, but you’ll soon find out students sometimes don’t pay attention to other students. This will help reinforce the concept you’re teaching. You can use post-it notes or give them a small piece of paper. I have also used Google Forms to collect an exit ticket from the students. I prefer hand gestures to actual paper methods as to avoid a mess and extra paperwork. You could also count the exit ticket as a participation grade of some sort if you like or toss in the garbage. Read them quick to measure how your lesson went.

Afterwards…ask your cooperating teacher for advice and constructive criticism. Question wait times, delivery, voice, intonation, visuals, lesson pacing/time, and any general thoughts on the lesson should be considered. When receiving the advice, try to implement and work on anything suggested for your next lesson.

It’s totally okay to make mistakes and for your lesson to fall flat. This happens to everyone. After teaching your first lesson, reflect on what went great and what you need to work on. Don’t beat yourself up. Give yourself a “pat on the back” for accomplishing your first lesson.

Security is not the absence of attack, but the presence of God.

Isaiah 54

Isaiah 54

Jehovah says:

“Shout joyfully, you barren woman who has not given birth! Become cheerful and cry out for joy, you who never had birth pains, For the sons of the desolate one are more numerous Than the sons of the woman with a husband.

Make the place of your tent more spacious. Stretch out the tent cloths of your grand tabernacle. Do not hold back, lengthen your tent cords, And make your tent pins strong.

For you will spread out to the right and to the left. Your offspring will take possession of nations, And they will inhabit the desolated cities.

Do not be afraid, for you will not be put to shame; And do not feel humiliated, for you will not be disappointed. For you will forget the shame of your youth, And the disgrace of your widowhood you will remember no more.”

“For your Grand Maker is as your husband, Jehovah of armies is his name, And the Holy One of Israel is your Repurchaser. He will be called the God of the whole earth.

For Jehovah called you as if you were an abandoned wife and grief-stricken, Like a wife married in youth and then rejected,” says your God.

“For a brief moment I abandoned you, But with great mercy I will gather you back.

In a flood of indignation I hid my face from you for a moment, But with everlasting loyal love I will have mercy on you,” says your Repurchaser, Jehovah.

“This is like the days of Noah to me. Just as I have sworn that the waters of Noah will no more cover the earth, So I swear that I will no more become indignant toward you or rebuke you.

For the mountains may be removed And the hills may be shaken, But my loyal love will not be removed from you, Nor will my covenant of peace be shaken,” says Jehovah, the One having mercy on you.

“O afflicted woman, storm-tossed, uncomforted, I am laying your stones with hard mortar And your foundation with sapphires.

I will make your battlements of rubies, Your gates of sparkling stones, And all your boundaries of precious stones.

And all your sons will be taught by Jehovah, And the peace of your sons will be abundant.

You will be firmly established in righteousness. You will be far removed from oppression, You will fear nothing and have no cause for terror, For it will not come near you.

If anyone should attack you, It will not be at my orders. Whoever makes an attack on you will fall because of you.”

“Look! I myself created the craftsman, Who blows on the charcoal fire, And his work produces a weapon. I myself also created the destructive man to bring ruin.

No weapon formed against you will have any success, And you will condemn any tongue that rises up against you in the judgment. This is the heritage of the servants of Jehovah, And their righteousness is from me,” declares Jehovah.

Isaiah 55

Jehovah says:

“Come, all you thirsty ones, come to the water! You with no money, come, buy and eat! Yes, come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost.

Why do you keep paying out money for what is not bread, And why spend your earnings for what brings no satisfaction? Listen intently to me, and eat what is good, And you will find great delight in what is truly rich.

Incline your ear and come to me. Listen, and you will keep alive, And I will readily make with you an everlasting covenant In harmony with the expressions of loyal love to David, which are faithful.

Look! I made him a witness to the nations, A leader and commander to the nations.

Look! You will call a nation that you do not know, And those of a nation who have not known you will run to you For the sake of Jehovah your God, the Holy One of Israel, Because he will glorify you.

Search for Jehovah while he may be found. Call to him while he is near.

Let the wicked man leave his way And the evil man his thoughts; Let him return to Jehovah, who will have mercy on him, To our God, for he will forgive in a large way.”

Jehovah declares:

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, And your ways are not my ways.

For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So my ways are higher than your ways And my thoughts than your thoughts.

For just as the rain and the snow pour down from heaven And do not return there until they saturate the earth, making it produce and sprout, Giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,

So my word that goes out of my mouth will be. It will not return to me without results, But it will certainly accomplish whatever is my delight, And it will have sure success in what I send it to do.

For you will go out with rejoicing, And in peace you will be brought back. The mountains and the hills will become cheerful before you with a joyful cry, And the trees of the field will all clap their hands.

Instead of thornbushes the juniper tree will grow, And instead of the stinging nettle the myrtle tree will grow. And it will bring fame to Jehovah, An everlasting sign that will never perish.”

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#biblereading #bible #isaiah

Pitkästä aikaa Tampereella. Istuskelen Laukontorilla kahvilla auringossa ja katselen lauantain menoa. Tänään puodeista löytyy ainakin tuohikoreja sekä kuusamolaista muikkua. Kotoisaa pöhinää ja houkuttelevia tuoksuja. Pohdiskelen kaikenlaista. Mistä ihmiset tulevat, mihin he ovat matkalla ja mitä he mahtavat maailmasta ajatella.

Pidän habituksen tutkailusta. Ihmisten olemus kertoo paljon. Ilme, kävelytahti tai se, että vilkuileeko torilla kojuja vai painaako vain menemään. Tai pukeutuminen. Siihen kiinnitän eniten huomiota. Formi vai funktio. Mitä omalla pukeutumisellaan yksilö haluaa viestiä muille.

Mennään esimerkillä. Ohi käveli äsken kaksikko. Noin kuusikymppinen ja parikymppinen. Varmaankin äiti ja tytär. Molemmilla oli tuulipukua päällä. Helly Hansenin takkia ja mustaa housua. Lisäksi valkoiset juoksukengät ja tuulihousujen lahkeiden päälle vedetyt tennissukat. Trendejä seuraavaa sakkia selkeästi.

Ensiksi tuulipuvuista, sitten trendeistä.

Eli miksi pukeudutaan urheilullisesti jos ollaan menossa vaan käyskentelemään kaupungille ja torille juomaan kahvit? Tai ainakin kaksikon flegmaattinen hengailu torilla antaa sellaisen kuvan.

Teoriahörhönä lähestyn tätä bourdieuläisittäin. Funktio vs. formi. Tässä tapauksessa on painotettu funktiota. tuulitakki menee säähän kuin säähän. Juoksukengissä on mukava tallustaa. Eikä tuulihousut oo moksiskaan vaikka sattuisi istumaan toripenkillä linnunpaskaan.

Pukeutuminen on välttämättömyys, mutta samaan aikaan myös performanssi, jolla sanotaan jotakin. Rakennetaan itsestä narratiivia muille. Tuulipuvulla ja juoksukengillä – uskoisin – halutaan viestiä, että ollaan urheilullisia. Pidetään terveellisiä elämäntapoja arvokkaina. Että ollaan kultivoituneita siten, että valitaan pitkäjänteisyys ja niin sanottu korkeampi nautinto vaikka karkkien ja sipsien sijaan. Jotain tällaista kenties.

Ja tämä itsestä rakennettava narratiivi saa erilaisia ulottuvuuksia sosiokulttuurisessa tilassa. Sitä ei tulkita tyhjiössä narratiivin rakentajan näkökulmasta, tai objektiivisesti. Narratiivi rakentuu ja se tulkitaan aina suhteessa ympäröivään maailmaan. Ja subjektit tulkitsevat sitä erilaisista lähtökohdista eri tavoin. Jokaisen oma positio vaikuttaa tulkintaan. Ja näitä positioita ja niistä muodostuvia yhtenäisiä tulkintoja voidaan luokitella sosiokulttuurisiin luokkiin sitten.

Ehkä tutkijana jokin päivä.

Enivei.

Omia keloja tuulipuvusta. Mitä torilla käyskentely tuulipuvussa herättää mussa itsessäni? Itseasiassa kun asiaan kiinnittää laajemmin huomiota, niin oikeastaan aika moni on sonnustautunut tuulipukuun tai muihin urheilullisiin vetimiin. Se kertonee jotakin suomalaisesta sielunmaisemasta. Siitä funktionalistisesta ajattelusta. Tai ehkä suomalaisittain tätä pitäisi kutsua pragmatismiksi. Sama asia, menee hiustenhalkomiseksi.

Tuulipuku kertoo myös siitä, että millaista pukeutumista pidetään kaupunkitilaan soveliaana ja tavoiteltavana. Trendikkyys ja urheilullisuus ainakin tällaisia.

Mutta miksi? Uskoisin, että tekijöitä on monta. Eletään alati individualisoituvassa maailmassa, jossa itsensä kehittäminen – hyveiden kultivointi – on nostettu jalustalle. Se näkyy kaikkialla. Mainoksissa, kuvituskuvissa, elokuvissa ja lehdissä. Oikeastaan kaikessa mediassa. Eli millaisia ihmisiä valitaan ja nostetaan esille?

Laihoja. Terveitä. Hymyileväisiä. Kilttejä. Säyseitä. Keskiluokkaisia. Sellaisia kunnon kansalaisia. Esivallalle myönteisiä ja harmittomia.

Ja tietysti tällaista ihannetta tavoitellaan. Kaikki haluavat elää hyvää elämää. Olla terveitä ja onnellisia. Kokea kuuluvansa johonkin.

Sitten trendeihin. Tai tyyliin. Molempiin. Mun mielestä käytännöllisyys ja helppous on tylsää. Yksilöllisyys ja persoonallisuus katoavat tuulitakkien mereen.

Tää onkin yksi postmodernin ajan kiehtovimmista ristiriidoista: Yksilöllistyvässä maailmassa on koko ajan tärkeämpää luoda omaa identiteettiä ja brändiä – erottua massasta. Ja kaikki tää samaan aikaan on bulkkituotannon ja konsumerismin maailmassa yhä haastavampaa.

Kaikki tasapaksuistuu. Nesteytyy (ks. Bauman ja notkea moderni). Mietitään vaikka Stockmannia, joka oli aikoinaan Suomessa muodin ja trendien suunnannäyttäjä. Kiehtovien, rohkeiden ja uusien kledjujen paikka. Mutta jokin muuttui. Stocka jäi jumiin. Rupesivat pelkäämään persoonallisuutta. Nykyään Prismasta saa samannäköistä pukimetta kuin Stockalta. Suomalaisen vaatetuksen kentän selkeät rajat hajosivat ja on sulautunut yhdeksi mötikäksi.

Tietysti tää on vibailuun perustuva anekdootti ja yksinkertaistus. Mutta Stocka on juuttunut pahasti vuoteen 2016. Pelätään erottautua. Tai sitten vaan keskitytään talouslukuihin. Pitäydytään siinä, mitä myydään eniten. Ja sitä kautta häviää kaikki poikkeava, kenties kiinnostavakin. Jää vain massoja tyydyttävä tasapaksuisuus. Normaalijakauman 95%.

Ja juuri se tasapaksuisuus pelottaa mua. Eniten sen vuoksi, mitä se edustaa mulle: Ihmisten pelkistämistä kuluttajiksi, jotka ottaa kaiken vastaan mitä vain annetaan. Paskaa kurkusta alas ja ei olla moksiskaan, jopa kiitetään. Haluan olla muutakin kuin ratas kapitalistisessa myllyssä. Haluan olla yksilö, elää merkityksellistä elämää ja tehdä merkityksellisiä juttuja.

Mietin kapitalismin roolia tässä kaikessa. Se individualismi ja tarve erottautua. Vähemmän on vanhan liiton pieniä kotimaisia firmoja. Käsintehtyjä nahkarotseja tai semmoista. Ei pienet toimijat pärjää globaaleille jäteille, joilla on halvat hinnat, verkkokaupat ja mahdollisuus mainostaa kaikkialla. Että yhä harvempi iso toimija kerää valtaa.

Se kuuluu kapitalismin mekanismeihin olennaisesti. Kilpailussa suurempi ja menestyvämpi toimija ostaa pienemmän ja heikomman pois. Näennäisesti kuluttajalla on valinnanvaraa, mutta isot konglomeraatit operoivat kymmeniä tai satoja brändejä. Illuusio vapaasta valinnasta.

Mutta se, että pukeudunko perintönahkatakkiin vai tuulipukuun ei hirveästi muuta mun asemaa kapitalismin rattaissa. Kiinnostavaa on kuitenkin, että miksi ollaan sisäistetty pukeutumisen arvottamista, vaikka kaikki ollaankin saman järjestelmän alla samassa asemassa. Ajetaan arvottamalla kiilaa ihmisten väliin.

Habitukseen perustuvaa arvotusta ja syrjimistä lienee ollut aina. Joskus 60-luvulla ei päässyt Suomessakaan ravintoloihin, jos ei miehellä ollut puvuntakki ja solmio päällä tai naisella hame ja sukkahousut. Eivätkä naiset päässeet ilman miesseuraa ravintolaan. Että pukimevaatimukset toimivat ekstensiona taloudellisten ja sosiokulttuuristen hierarkioiden ylläpitämiselle.

En pidä tuulipukumeiningistä tai tasapaksuisuudesta. Kaipaan kiinnostavaa yksilöllisyyttä. Lienen sisäistänyt kapitalistisen hierarkisen ajattelun. Toisaalta haluan oikeuttaa positioni itselleni. Että arvottaminen ikään kuin tuntuu jossain määrin luonnolliselta. Siihen on vain kasvanut. Ja oppinut tarkastelemaan itseään negatiivisten kokemusten takia. En pidä omaa tyyliäni mitenkään kovin poikkeuksellisena, uniikkina tai riikinkukkomaisena, mutta kuulemma “tollanen vitun vassari”-henki musta huokuu.

Ehkä tällasten kokemusten takia just on oppinut arvottamaan. Oppinut, että millaisen habituksen omaavia kannattaa välttää. Etenkin jos joku on humalassa. Homottelua ja turpaanvetouhkauksia on tullut pitkien hiusten takia. Että sitten on oppinut luokittelemaan todennäköisiä uhkia. Ja sit laajemmin tutkailemaan ja arvottamaan. Jokin primaali aspekti tässä lienee. Me ja muut-, lauma- ja hahmontunnistusmeinki.

Kai se on inhimillistä laatikoida. Evolutiivinen funktio on havaittavissa edelleen. Tietää kelle kannattaa kääntää selkä aamuöisellä nakkikiskalla.

Ja luokitteleehan ihmiset itsejään habituksellaan. Halutaan olla osa ryhmää. Alakulttuurit on tällaisia. On punkkaria, räppäriä, rokkaria ja niin edelleen.

Pukeutuminen ekstensoi ihmisten maailmankuvaa ja arvomaailmaa. Tuo ne esiin. Ja vaikka ei ajattelisikaan, että mitä laittaa päälleen ja mikä narratiivinen merkitys sillä on, niin siinä implisiittisesti kertoo itsestään. Että ultrapikamuotiin itsensä verhoava tulee paljastaneeksi oman sosiokulttuurisen positionsa: tiedostamattomuutensa ja arvoarvostelmansa. Tai mittatilauspukuun pukeutuva viestii varallisuudestaan ja tarpeesta tuoda esiin yksilöllisyyttä.

Takaisin torille ja tuulipukumereen.

Miksi suomessa ei keskimäärin pukeuduta? Kai se on historia. Täällä ollaan oltu vahvasti agraariyhteiskunta vielä 1940-luvulla. Funktio on laitettu formin edelle. Myöhäinen kaupungistuminen ja teollistuminen lienee vaikuttanut siihen, että täällä ei ole vielä muodostunut samanlaista pukeutumiskulttuuria kuin Keski-Euroopassa.

Maantieteellisellä sijainnilla lienee lusikkansa tässä sopassa. Pohjolan perukat on eristäytyneitä verrattuna Manner-Eurooppaan. Ja vaikka globalisaatio ja internet ovatkin vähentäneet sijainnin, etäisyyden ja ajan merkitystä rajojen muodostajina, niin eivät maantieteelliset kulttuuriset rajat ole kadonneet mihinkään. Vaikka sekoittuneisuutta onkin. Ei kaikkea voi redusoida maantieteeseen tai muihin materialistisiin seikkoihin.

Että kulttuuriset ja historialliset konventiot vaikuttavat myös. Niihin pitäisi pureutua paremmin. Paremman puutteessa tulee takerruttua historialliseen materialismiin ja strukturalismiin.

Loppuun vielä pukeutumisen arvottamisesta. En pysty tätä ilmiötä täysin neutraalisti tarkastelemaan, vaan oma kaupunkilainen, leppoisa keskiluokkaisuus kyllä näkyy ja kuuluu. Toisaalta kaikki tulkitaan omien taustojen perusteella maailmaa. Sitä sisäistää tällaisia konventioita ja hierarkioita. Muiden arvottamista. En pidä siitä. Miksi teen niin? Se häiritsee. Ihmisiä, tuntevia ja arvokkaita olentoja kaikki ollaan. Eikä pukeutuminen loppupeleissä kerro ihmisestä tai hänen hyvyydestää. Turkista tai ultrapikamuotia pitäisi pyrkiä ymmärtämään. Ei tuomitsemaan.

Last weekend was a bit stressful as both my kids threw up all over the couch cushions, bathroom floor, and on me. They’re okay, thank God. While they got it out of their system they had to eat again so they don’t go hungry. Always be super careful of what ingredients are in your food before feeding your children.

#children #food #ingredients #sick #stayathomedad #vomit

#shuacantikharem

Joshua gelisah seharian. Sedari tadi dia muterin pulpen di tangan, sesekali gigitin kuku jempol tangan satunya. Semua yang lagi diomongin dosen di depan nggak ada yang nyangkut sama sekali di kepala cantiknya. Gimana mau konsen coba, kalo dia baru aja nerima chat berbau anceman begitu? Itu siapa? Kapan dia ngambil video itu? Mau diapain tuh video anjir?? Joshua nggak bisa berhenti mikirin semua kemungkinan yang jelek-jelek.

“Bang.”

Sikut ketemu sikut. Pulpen terpelanting dari gerak monotonnya, terjatuh ke lantai dengan bunyi yang membuat satu kelas nengok ke arah Joshua. “Maaf,” buru-buru Joshua bangun dan berjongkok mengambil pulpen, mematikan pertanyaan dosen yang baru aja mau buka mulut. Ketika fokus kelas kembali ke pelajaran, Seungkwan menunduk dengan ekspresi minta maaf.

“Bang, sori ya, tapi lo kenapa sih?” bisiknya pelan. “Kayak lagi banyak pikiran.” Yang mana hal itu sendiri udah aneh di mata Seungkwan. Saking nempelnya mereka berdua dari kecil, Seungkwan hafal tiap perubahan kecil dari diri Joshua. Mode overthinking Joshua bisa diitung dengan jari selama dia hidup dan biasanya gegara hal yang bener-bener serius.

Karena masih dalam kelas, Joshua cuma menggeleng sambil tersenyum sebagai jawaban. Disenyumin gitu, makin dalam lah kernyitan alis Boo Seungkwan. Bang Shua aneh banget. Pokoknya dia harus tau ada apa sama Bang Shua sampe jadi aneh begini.

Pas bubaran kelas, Seungkwan tadinya mau nyeret Joshua ke kantin buat interogasi keanehan dia sepagian ini, tapi Joshua malah bilang kalo dia ada urusan penting jadi skip maksi dulu. Nggak cuma itu, dia juga wanti-wanti Seungkwan supaya nggak ngikutin dia. “Awas ya kalo nguntit,” ancamnya. “Aku kasihin foto malu-maluin kamu ke om aku.”

“Ih anjing, kok lo gitu sih maennya?” decak Seungkwan.

“Ya abisan kalo nggak digituin, kamu pasti nguntit! Kepoan banget, kenapa sih?”

“Iya, iya, enggak! Nggak asik lo, Bang!”

Biarin Joshua nggak asik. Daripada ketahuan dia diblack mail orang asing pake video dia lagi cipokan sama Wonwoo di perpus.

....

Lagi-lagi disentuhnya bibir. Masih tertinggal jejak bibir cowok berkacamata itu di bibir Joshua. Agak kering dan sedikit pecah-pecah—Joshua pengen kasih bibir Wonwoo lip balm tiap hari rasanya deh—tapi panas dan melumat bibir Joshua bagai kudapan favoritnya. Pipi si manis bersemu kala mengingat bagaimana bernafsunya ciuman mereka. Kalo Joshua ketemu Wonwoo lagi di tempat sepi, apa...bakal maju ke base berikutnya? Pengen, tapi takut. Biarpun Joshua berkarir di modelling dan punya fans seabreg di kampus, dia belom pernah pacaran.

Ciuman pun...pertama kalinya diambil sama Wonwoo...

Terlalu lebur dalam memori, Joshua nggak sadar kalo dia udah jalan ke taman yang dimaksud. Kakinya pun udah melangkah mendekati bangku yang dimaksud. Pas sampe, si anak melongo. Ada orang yang nggak asing sedang duduk di bangku itu.

”...Jeonghan?”

“Yo, Joshuji,” cengiran, yang sukses bikin suara Joshua seketika meninggi.

“Joshua! Bukan Joshuji!” sumpah, dia benci banget dipanggil Joshuji Joshuji begitu, apalagi sama orang kayak Jeonghan. Ngejek banget, nyebelin! “Kamu ngapain di sini?”

“Ketemu sama lo,” ditunjuknya Joshua tanpa ragu.

Sedetik, Joshua bingung. Detik berikutnya, dia langsung nangkep maksudnya. “....Kamu yang ngirim chat itu?” gumamnya.

Oh God, please don't...

“Hehe, yoi,” Jeonghan mengedipkan sebelah mata. Ngeliat muka cantik Joshua pucat pasi bikin Jeonghan nggak nyesel udah iseng ke perpus buat numpang tidur kemaren sore. Siapa sangka, kan, primadona satu kampus sekaligus objek kejailan utama Yoon Jeonghan yang bisa buat hari-harinya less ngebosenin, malah sibuk tukeran liur sama cowok nerdus nggak tau siapa di salah satu sudutnya?

Pathetic.

“Nggak nyangka selera lo yang cupu-cupu gitu,” ejek Jeonghan. Ternyata, selain keliatan super cantik pas lagi ngamuk, Joshua juga super cantik pas lagi ngeliat dia horor begini. “Sayang banget cantik-cantik bibirnya abis dikokopin cowok selevel gitu doang.”

Cowok yang pantes buat Joshua tuh standar Jeonghan gitu lah minimal—ganteng, jago olahraga, semua orang kenal dia, party animal, plus keluarganya turun temurun bergerak di bidang hukum. Nggak tau berapa digit di rekening dia sendiri hasil transferan bokap nyokapnya, padahal Jeonghan juga nggak minta. Apaan tuh, modelan cowok kacamataan kemaren? Baunya aja udah orang miskin.

“Terus k-kamu mau apa?” masih syok, Joshua memaksakan mulutnya bergerak. Sebenernya dia mau ngamuk, tersinggung sama omongan Jeonghan. Bukan, bukan ejekan soal selera dia, tapi Joshua mau ngamuk gegara Jeonghan ngejelekin Wonwoo. Tangannya di sisi badan nggak ayal terkepal. “Mana video yang kamu bilang kemaren? Apa itu cuma boongan??”

Jeonghan mengangkat kedua bahu. Lalu, diambilnya ip17 buat ditontonkannya ke Joshua. Dalam kualitas 4k, bola mata Joshua melebar menyaksikan gimana dia ngalungin lengan ke sekeliling leher Wonwoo, bercumbu bak dua remaja sangean. Refleks, Joshua mengulurkan tangan berniat ngerebut hp Jeonghan. Sayangnya, refleks Jeonghan juga nggak kalah sensitif. Dengan lihai, atlet informal sepak bola dan basket itu menarik lagi hp nya agar jauh dari jangkauan Joshua.

“Eits, nggak boleh bandel, Shuji,” digoyangkannya telunjuk, seolah mendecak 'no, no, no' ke anak kecil. “Gue nggak sejahat itu kok. Lo mau gue apus videonya ato kasih ke lo, boleh-boleh aja. Asal ada syaratnya.”

Of course. An eye for an eye.

“Apa syaratnya?”

And we all go blind.

Jeonghan menyeringai lagi sambil menepuk-nepuk santai pangkuannya, “Duduk sini, cium gue.”

I was sitting on a curb having the kind of revelation that only hits when you're at the exact intersection of self-pity and dehydration.

The context is that nobody wants to date me. I've tried the apps. I've cold-approached strangers on the street like some guy handing out flyers for a restaurant nobody's going to. I've asked friends to set me up, which is the romantic equivalent of having your mom call the teacher. Nothing has worked. People tell me I’m a fashion terrorista — okay, fair, but you don't have to volunteer that information unprompted. I'm also short, which means I’m automatically ugly to most women. So there's that.

I'm mid-20s. This doesn't mean anything about how life turns out. I know that intellectually. But I was in the pit — the real pit, the one where your brain starts looping I'm gonna kill myself like it's a Hatsune Miku song stuck on repeat — and somewhere in the middle of that loop my brain just went: wait. Why do you even need to get married?

Like actually why. Life is short. People try to convince you it's some great thing, and I mean yeah, feeling loved and loving someone is probably wonderful. That's why so many people do it. But there are a lot of different things that can bring you fulfillment and happiness and satisfaction, and it's not like the point of life is to sustain those feelings forever, so why is this one particular arrangement elevated above everything else? I don't get it. I've never gotten it. I'm sitting on this curb and I genuinely cannot produce a reason.

And look, even the people who do get married — even the happy ones — it's not like it's this smooth, pleasant experience. My parents are happily married. They're also in the same argument they were in ten years ago. You can't fix people. You really can't. Whatever the issue is, it's going to be the same issue at year one and year twenty and year forty, and you're just going to have to live with it. Men have their specific faults. Women have their specific faults. And because they're so different from each other, sometimes one side genuinely cannot understand or sympathize with what the other side needs. It's not malice. It's just that you're wired differently and some gaps don't close no matter how much goodwill there is. Maybe if you're gay or lesbian it's easier. Same wavelength, at least. I don't know. But the point is that marriage is not this effortless beautiful thing people make it out to be. It's a grind. It's a daily grind that you're signing up for permanently.

And the divorce rate is insane. People will stand at an altar, say “till death do us part” with their whole chest, and then three years later they're splitting a Vitamix in mediation. I think of marriage as something you don't break. Period. That's what the commitment means. Unless someone is under genuine imminent threat, you stay. Personality difference? You stay. You're annoyed? You stay. That's the deal. That's what “till death” means. And yet people treat it as the most important decision of their life and then bail when it gets hard. So either the commitment doesn't mean what they said it meant, or they didn't think about it seriously enough before they made it. Either way, I'm not seeing a great advertisement here.

So I'm doing the math. Let's say I die at 65. I have 40 years left. 40 years is not a lot of time. If I get married I spend those years on kids, family, all of that, and I guess it can be very fulfilling. I'm not denying that. But you shouldn't have a kid to give your life meaning. You shouldn't need a family to feel like your existence has a point. There are things that fundamentally have meaning apart from all of that. If you're a Christian, the essence of life is to love God, love your neighbor. Being single doesn't subtract from that. It's not even in the equation.

I spent a good 30 minutes on this curb — which is a long time to sit on concrete, for the record, my ass was completely numb by the end — and I could not produce a single reason why you need to get married. Not one. I tried. I sat there and I tried to argue the other side and I kept coming up empty.

Thought experiment time!

I ran this thought experiment on myself. Let's say I wake up tomorrow and I'm inexplicably attractive. Just overnight, something changed, and now there's a horde of people who want to date me. They're knocking on my door, telling me I'm handsome, the whole thing. Do I want them?

No. I'd hate every single one of them. Because I know what happened. Yesterday they wouldn't have looked at me if I was on fire, and today some switch flipped and now they're interested. That's not real. They don't like me. They like the version of me that crossed whatever arbitrary threshold they have for attractiveness, and that version didn't exist 24 hours ago. Everything I actually am — all of it, the good and the bad and the boring and the weird — none of that changed. The only thing that changed is my face or my height or whatever, and that was enough. That tells me everything I need to know about what they actually value.

Or let's say I got rich. A billion dollars, just appeared in my account. Suddenly everyone thinks I'm interesting and attractive and worth their time. That doesn't draw me towards them. That makes me want to walk into the ocean. You didn't want me when I was broke and invisible, and now I'm supposed to believe this is genuine? We both know what this is. Get out of my house.

I realize I'm getting increasingly worked up about hypothetical people who don't exist. I'm developing resentments towards women I have never met over scenarios that have not occurred. This is probably not a sign of great mental health. But the point underneath all of that is real, I think. What I actually want — what anyone actually wants, if they're honest about it — is someone who likes them when they're not impressive. When they're sick, broke, annoying, ugly, boring. Not just when everything's going great and you're easy to love. The love people actually crave is the kind that doesn't have conditions.

And that kind of love is almost impossible to find between two people. Parental love comes close, but even that has limits. If your kid is a three-time serial killer, even Mom is going to have a hard time. Really the only place you find truly unconditional love is God. That's it. That yearning you have — that deep, bottomless thing that makes you feel like you'll die if nobody ever really knows you and loves you anyway — that's pointed at God whether you realize it or not. Romantic love is great. I'm not trashing it. But it's not the answer to that particular ache, and it never was, and treating it like the answer is how people end up devastated when it doesn't fix them.

So where does that leave me.

I think the issue was never that nobody wants me. I think the issue is that I was staring at the wrong scoreboard. I've been depressed about something that doesn't actually matter as much as I thought it did. My priorities were misaligned. I was pouring all this energy and anguish into the fact that I'm not valuable in the dating market, and the whole time the answer was just: so what? It doesn't take away from the things that actually matter. It doesn't diminish my life. It's fine. It is genuinely fine.

And I mean that. I'm not just repeating “it's fine” to myself like a mantra, trying to brainwash myself into believing it. I actually sat with this for a while and I cannot find a hole in it. There's no reason this should be ruining my life the way it has been.

I think I can own it. I'm a chud. Possibly an extreme chud. I have zero aura. I get nervous in big open rooms and feel safe in capsule hotels where everything is tight and enclosed and nobody can see me. I am most at peace in a basement in front of a computer. Complete self-deception can fix a lot of things, but there are some objective truths that no amount of gaslight-yourself energy is going to override. I am who I am. The dating market has weighed me and found me wanting, and I have decided that the dating market's opinion is not one I need to care about.

Do I talk to anyone about this? About any of it? No. Should I? I don't know. Will I? Absolutely not. I keep everything buried all the time. Everything is embarrassing. Everything is shameful. I don't know where that comes from — this feeling that any interior thought, once spoken aloud, becomes humiliating — but it's been there as long as I can remember. Sometimes I think I would rather die than describe what's going on inside my head to another person. That's probably its own problem. A big one, actually. But I'm choosing not to engage with it right now because I can only have one crisis at a time and this curb is not comfortable enough for two.

I do all my thinking alone, which means my thoughts are becoming increasingly feral. I'm drifting further from what normal people think. I'm aware of this. Every week I spend processing things in complete isolation is another week my worldview gets a little more strange, a little less compatible with polite conversation. I'm developing opinions and frameworks that I could never say out loud because they'd sound insane, but they make perfect sense inside my head, which is either a sign that I'm onto something or a sign that I've lost the plot entirely. I honestly don't know which one it is and I'm not sure it matters.

I wanted to write all of this down before I forgot it. That's the only reason this exists. I thought about something for 30 minutes on a curb and I want to be able to come back to it later and remember what I was thinking, because usually these things just evaporate and then I'm back in the pit again with no recollection of ever having climbed out. So here it is. My ass hurts. I'm going inside. I don't know if I'm convinced or if I'm just tired, but either way I'm done sitting on concrete.

A friend sent me a Facebook marketplace listing for the minions movie fart gun, And I really wanted to rebuild a taser and so I bought the guns for $22. I went to the lady right after the gym and she said I can clearly tell you work out, and I realized that it doesn’t shock me at all that someone says that. Like very clearly I work out I was in my tank top and I am very muscular, and it kind of nice even though it feels scary and like I’m being vain, but it feels really nice too have that positive self image about myself for once. I don’t know why it feels like it’s such an evil thing to have a positive self image.

Contentment feels right for me. Not necessarily happy or sad. Not good or bad. I’m good with what is. I still know how to make myself happy if I want to, but I don’t have to do that all the time. I enjoy it, though. Like, the other day, I went out to a restaurant. It was such a pleasant experience that after ordering an appetizer and an entrée, I ordered another entrée. The server was laughing. I don’t think she was expecting an order of medium bison steak when she came back to my table with a dessert menu. I still had dessert after the bison, rhubarb panna cotta to be precise. My appetite surprises me sometimes. Good food makes me happy. I know how to have a good time.

I stopped consuming stimulants a few years ago. Coffee, alcohol, cannabis, and some other things. I quit because I wanted happiness to come from within. They say these substances aren’t addictive. I think they are. They were for me, and I didn’t want to admit that. There were individuals in my life whom I could only connect deeply with by sharing substances. When the effect wore off, the connection was lost. I wanted something more. Deeper, more meaningful, and something worth sustaining. People’s energy levels vary, but I am a high-energy beast. I realized I am a stimulant myself. When someone like me consumes external stimulants, it’s a complete overkill. Many people need stimulants to feel confident. I feel more relaxed and more like myself without stimulants.

I stopped wearing makeup daily because I didn’t want to anymore. I like my face the way it is. I stopped wearing a traditional bra. I always hated wearing a bra. It was so uncomfortable. Then one day, I realized I didn’t have to wear it, so I stopped. I quit social media because I didn’t want to wake up to a load of information I didn’t ask for. To this day, a few friends have asked me to come back to Instagram, which I find somewhat gratifying. But I feel really, really peaceful without it. And honestly, I don’t care about what’s trending. I used to think I should care, but I don’t. I’m very happy to be missing out.

I recently spent hours reducing my over 2000 contacts down to less than 200. Why keep them if I don’t even remember who they are? I still delete call and text history every day. I find it unnatural to keep a record of conversations. I believe in actively eliminating irrelevant digital content regularly. It’s the same as intentionally letting go of our outdated beliefs. It has to be done on purpose. However, when I meet friends or new people, I am very present. If they share stories and resources, I take them to heart because they came from the people I choose to keep and cultivate. I appreciate them sharing with me in person. This is how I learn in life.

There’s some Yorkshire racing every day of the week this week, so lets see if I can’t find a winner or two.

3.12 Redcar Perfidia looks to have a good chance here but would want bigger odds than 10/3 to get involved. So I’m going to take a chance on Fahey’s FAR AHEAD who despite form figures of 9066000 could have a say here. I’m happy to put a line through the 6000 figures as they were all on the AW this winter and he was beaten so far out of sight he sight I’m suggesting he hated the surface. I’m also willing to scratch his 906 finishes as although they were on the turf, they were also in much better races. So today, he’s contesting a class 6 handicap for the first time off a career low mark (21lbs lower than his best bit of form – 3L 6th at Thirsk) and from box 1 – which if he can get a lead like LTO, could be a big advantage. When I started writing this 15 minutes ago he was 16/1 but has since shortened to 10/1 so that’s what I’ll go with here. I wouldn’t take any shorter, personally. Obviously a big chance he’s just crap, but I’ll take it! FAR AHEAD // 0.5pt E/W @ 10/1 4 places (Paddy Power)