And So It Goes

I am not very proud of the fact that quite often I make a mental note to remember something I think profound, and then almost immediately forget it.

I’m trying hard to discipline myself to write things down IN-THE-MOMENT but that’s not going so well. I’m usually in too big a hurry (doing nothing that can’t wait) to stop for a minute or two and ponder. I’m great at talking myself into the idea that I’ll do it later. “Really”, I say, “I will.” and I believe myself until later comes around and I can’t remember exactly just what the profound thought I wanted to remember was.

This spring though, the profound thought I keep forgetting to remember is chasing me down. I hear it in songs, I read it in books, it comes up in conversation. The profound thought I have now written down and thought about a lot, (because apparently, it’s a thought I’m supposed to hear and act on) goes something like this: (drumroll please)

Happy and sad can and do simultaneously exist.

Put more eloquently:

“Think of all the beauty still left around you and be happy.”

― Anne Frank

“I am both happy and sad at the same time, and I’m still trying to figure out how that could be.”

― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“And the tree was happy”

― Shel Silverstein, The Giving Tree

The profound that keeps following me around keeps telling me this,

“Life is bittersweet; it’s both broken and beautiful.

And it is.

And it goes on.