So much can change from day to day. So what do we do? We get up and we go again. I write this in the early morning, lying in the cozy guest room of one of my best friends.

The bed is warm. Birds chirp amidst the drizzly San Diego sky. Things are gonna be alright.

My writing has been a little heavy lately. But life has felt a little heavy. That’s okay. In these depths, so much love has had the chance to shine.

“The best men are the ones that have been broken by life and have pulled through,” my man Alain de Botton says here. De Botton has been crucial in guiding me through this complex chapter. He continues:

“They’ve been forced by circumstances to drop the illusion of their strength and power. They’ve hit rock bottom, and they’ve had to reach out and say, I can’t cope. I’m in an infantile position. Men become rather glorious when that’s happened to them.”

At a certain point, life can and will break us. It steals our dreams, takes people we love, makes us feel cheated, abandoned, misunderstood, alone.

When it does, we have two choices: we can become bitter. Or, perhaps after weeks, months, years of wallowing in the mud, breaking becomes a liberation. A threshold to greater understanding, compassion, humility, humor, and love.

Often, like an animal,
I just want to run.
Flee for the hills—hide, curl into a ball,
escape the uncertainty and pain of life.
But the universe is testing you.
Guiding you.
Eyes open, clear, patient in the painful world.

I’m here for it.
Aware of
how I feel—scared yet full of faith.
It’s hard. Didn’t ask for this.
An acute sensitivity to life and people;
it’s your gift, and it hurts, the nightmares and
dreams, sitting with the longing to run away.
Yet you face it, listen to what the feelings have to say,
because there’s nowhere to go.
I’m only running from myself; running towards what
already lives within me—light.

I can handle life.

I can handle pain.

The love in the words,
your presence is your purpose,
your ability not to flee when things get hard.
The mountains will be there. The cities too.
And one day you will feel at home amongst the
snow and steel, but the ocean’s meant to heal you.
You’re by the sea to heal.
Alive in the painful world.
And things will be okay.

Rejoice.
Rejoice!
Things will be okay!
It hurts. Embrace it.
Life hurts. Feel it.
Could it be so good
if it didn’t hurt too?
When it does, all we can do is laugh
at all our common worries, this duality in me, in all of us
the weight of time pushing on, crushing—
yet there’s this overwhelming longing to be free,
unburdened, to laugh
and smile and let the sunlight in without looking
for clouds.

It’s a painful world, but we make it beautiful.

When life hurts, when the illusion fades and we no longer give a flying fuck about fitting in or keeping it together, we may smile at strangers where we wouldn’t have before.

We drink our morning coffee like it’s the last one we’ll have, because in that hot cup o’ joe is salvation, a semblance of comfort, a moment of peace, and that’s all we want or need.

We stop to smell the flowers, because the flowers are beautiful, drops of color in a world of gray, and who gives a shit if people are watching.

We tell people how we truly feel because there’s nothing left to lose, yet so much to gain from vulnerability.

Maybe we take the pressure off of ourselves to achieve, to climb, to be so much more than we can be; we just allow ourselves a morning, an afternoon, a weekend to do nothing but indulge in funny videos, take walks in the park, or lose ourselves in the profound pleasures of a really good book.

In difficult times when we feel broken, take solace in the simplest things.

On my visit to San Diego this weekend, my buddy and I had an incredible workout together. Thai food, fish burritos, a Lord of the Rings marathon and ice cream with his awesome girlfriend.

Pickleball with other friends I didn’t think I’d see.

Coffee in the morning, dumb jokes, and connection.

It doesn’t get better than that.

Sunlight after rain, where the flowers feel revived. And I too feel nourished from a change of scenery, quality time with a friend; my friends are everything. They bring me peace, calm, joy, instead of friends who stir up drama, chaos, noise.

I’m not down with that. Rather, I’m awed by the guys I get to call my brothers.

Become empty, so the beauty of life may fill you—so you may see the colors of the flowers across the moss green fence, their orange resplendent as the setting sun.

Become empty, so you may hear the song of the birds, a melody that fills the mercurial sky, the sound of healing, light, and goodness in the world.

Life is full. Asking me to interact. And I feel so very alive, so loved and full of love, grateful, strong. Because I know I can handle what life presents.

I’m evolving. With each passing day I push this rock uphill, and I know I’m going somewhere, forward into greater understanding, healing, and growth.

What is it all about. What on Earth am I trying to achieve?

I don’t know, but I have to keep going.

Dance with reality every damn day.

I get the exciting challenge of moving yet again, this time to NYC, one of the greatest cities in the world. The worthy challenge of going for my dreams.

I get time with my best friends.

I get to be with my family right now as they’re here for me.

Sunset walks.

The pleasures of great books.

Life-changing workouts.

Dips in the cold ocean.

The sounds of a rainy night.

Another day to be alive, with the winds of change rushing through me.