Dear World

Please Kill Me,

I learned a long time ago that there isn’t much we can do about life. Despite our goals, our plans, our orgasmic pleas to the goddess Hera, life will have its way with us–one day after the next. Eventually, I found it best to just take the good days in stride and the bad ones like an uppercut to the jaw. Life in. Life out.

Nowadays, I try not to fret. I won’t insult you with the ‘don’t sweat the small stuff’ trope. Frankly, if you do, you likely don’t want to hear much more than your own internal yammering–productive or otherwise. My point is that we shouldn’t consider it (life’s’ little K.O. moments). At best we’re extending the trials and giving our unique treachery space to infiltrate even deeper into our psyche.

Instead, I do something, that I recently found out was weird. I observe my bad days. I study them. I live in them. I don’t engage. I bask in what would otherwise be unbearable torture like a pool of Nestle-chocolate ( …and I swim naked. #Giggity).

“Why,” you ask. (you didn’t)

Because I believe that the bad days are what make the good ones worth living. (Call it cheesy. I don’t care… It’s either that or build the worlds’ strongest pillow fort).

*ponders decision*

*questions judgment*

“Damn it!”

Anyway… I like to think that without the bad days, we wouldn’t appreciate the good. Sure, it’s awesome to find a dollar. Do you know when it’s even more awesome? When you haven’t had a dollar in a while. (In this instance, the “dollar” is the ‘good day’).

Yeah, I get it. Regardless of the ultimate good that may or may not befall us, we’ve still got to get through the dour days, sour nights, and endless evenings of insecurity, doubt, and reflective contemplation. So what? Because, again, what’s the alternative? (#PillowFort)

Like anyone else, my days are a crapshoot. Like too few people, I ride the tide of misfortune with a studious eye.

Granted, I’m not so inquisitive on the good days. To be honest, I enjoy them far too much for the analysis (likely why I write the stories that I do). Additionally, I don’t find much inspiration in things that make me smile. It isn’t that they aren’t muse-like. I just like to keep them to myself (kind of like Captain America, in the last scene of Endgame. #Homewrecker #PeggingPeggy).

So cut yourself some slack and train your mind to process your bad days in a way that works for you. If you’re a writer, where’s the story? If you’re a painter, where’s the truth? If you’re a musician (the inarguable best at this), where’s the song?

Learn to isolate the emotions and translate them into art. What other time could you do it so purely, knowledgeably, and honestly?

Then, when the ‘good days’ come, you can keep them to yourself if you want to.

Just don’t let anything stop you.

Life included.

Until Next Time,

Antwan Crump

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