I just watched some raw video of a friend's son and his buddy playing an impromptu song in the front seat of a jeep. One on the guitar and singing, the other using the dash as drums. It's quite brilliant in its simplicity. Your heart swells because you can feel their struggle. Not to play music. That's the easy part. They are young. And everything is so difficult. Discovery of the self, talents, acceptance. And direction. New bodies to learn what to do with. To know what we can get through with… This life-thing is rough.
Being alive is tough. Our instincts and needs and fears all stored chaotically in a package of nerves and skin and bones…. all fighting to feel and breathe and survive. I see young people in their awkwardness, then look in the mirror at my own. It's cyclical, the growing pains. We're all the same, you see. Just in different packages. Just in different stages. Stages of growth. Stages of damage. And we really are all damaged in some way…or another. Because being alive is tough. I used to get mad at it. "It" referring to the living, the fight, the struggle. I mean, I never asked to be born. I didn't volunteer for it. We didn't draw straws. No one stood in line for it. We were just plucked from our wherevers, thrown bare-assed into the world by our whoevers and expected to figure it out however. Yeah. Whatever. I'm trying to believe we're the lucky ones, perhaps even chosen ones. But then I see how much more damage has been done... to others, just struggling like you and me, when all they really want is to just feel good, like you and me. How is that even ok, the extra damaged cells, nerves, limbs, and heads… It is not ok with me. This life is tough enough. It's rough.
I have a scar on the side of my forehead above my temple, #2 of 4. I was about 6 and we were playing on a tractor. I fell off the seat and cracked my head open on the tow-hitch. A lot of blood, 5 stitches and a giant ice cream cone later and I was right back out there playing. Some will struggle harder, I know. But some of us never stop.
I like to ask people if they have scars on their skin, their bones...Their shell. I like to hear their stories. It really is just a giant battlefield out there, and we? Courageous warriors.
