a little fucking better

July 17th, 2024

I’ve been thinking a lot about my mom today because I’ve been thinking a lot about change.

Before she passed I was very anti-change, because she was here and who would want to move on from that?

Years ago I was asked to write and sing a chorus for a spoken word song, and the lines were telling:

I don’t know why, I don’t know why /
They say change is good, but that’s something that I never understood /
I don’t know why, I don’t know why /
I think if I could, I’d hit 88 and go back for good

When I got my shit relatively together, I started to accept change, and began to see its necessity and inevitability.

And when she left, I knew that I had to do more than that and actively embraced change, realizing that it isn’t good or bad; it just is, and good and bad follow each other like feet on a path.

We tell ourselves that everything used to be better when that’s rarely the actual case; we’re far enough away from our physical bodies and environments then to give us the distance we need to feel safe, to not feel the fear and pain under our skin.

For some reason, I often think I never got tired when I was young, and when I really think, all I was was tired, but a different kind.

Nothing can be great again because never in the history of humanity has everything been great.

All we can do and be is a little fucking better.

I’ve been getting angry a lot lately and I don’t know what’s up with that. I say “who is your anger good for?” in my head and I remember that the answer is nobody; a character in a Star Wars book asked herself that question and she turned out to be a villian, which is okay, because we’re all villians in somebody else’s story, anyway.

It’s still a good thing to ask myself.

I was talking to my dad today and I told him how I apply all the things I’ve learned in tiny fluorescent rooms to the real world, like listening to others, like really listening, and in the moment all I could think of was all the times I’ve failed to.

It made me angry.

My anger wasn’t good for anyone.

But I still refuse to feel less, to speak less, to read less, to listen less. I’ve been told the room is really hot right now but I never touched the thermostat, no matter how many times the loudest person at the party tells everyone I did.

In fact, the room changed, and I didn’t deny it, or merely accept it; I’m embracing it, because if I don’t embrace change, I’ll die.

And if I die I won’t get the chance to do or be just a little fucking better.