Happily Ever Fleeting
On Living, Dying, and Other Impossible Things
We're not meant to, you know, be here forever. We're not meant to always get it right.
This ever pervasive concept of good or perfection or pain-free—these are moments to cherish, as fleeting as their counterparts. As educational as their counterparts, but not something we should ever have expected as the bar, as the standard, as the thing we measure against for how we're doing.
Are you alive? Are you curious? Are you growing, learning, loving, being true to yourself?
We are not meant to never disappoint, never upset, never betray, never err. We are not meant to always get what we want and live happily ever after. That's fairy tale. Myth. Story.
And we need fairy tales, myths, stories. But did you know, “happily ever after” came later? It was usually just a cheap way to end a story fraught with misunderstood witches and entitled kings and queens.
Of course, when we live in a collectively agreed upon pyramid scheme that's been outdated since the day it was born, we can't help but try to keep up with the Kardashians. But good lord—do we really not see the jail cells we've placed each other and ourselves in? If civilization falls in the forest and we're all too hypnotized by our screens, does it even make a sound? If every day is turned into Christmas by next-day Amazon, does the joy of Christmas morning even exist?
Even spirituality has been perverted, commodified, and used against us in ways we know and see—and in ways we don’t. I'm not talking about religion either, which in its way fucked us all up too. I'm talking about the new age crash out. The wellness industry. Which, along with beauty and health, has built a machine to make us all miserable.
Not skinny enough. Not fat enough. Not healthy enough. Not sick enough. Not pretty enough. Not ugly enough. Not smart enough. Not dumb enough.
The foundation built on the loudest, weakest Achilles heel of every single one of us: not enough. And its counterpart: too much.
So when we do courageously leave the prisons we have unconsciously resided in—when we start to break away from the herd and claim agency, autonomy, sovereignty—it can look and feel like being raked over hot coals again and again. The comfort of the tiny room with a cot and maybe a roommate who's got it worse than you can be so very tempting.
But that is not why the poets came. That is not what we are here to do with our one wild and precious life.
No, we are meant to feel, live, cry, scream, laugh, love, lose, gain, appreciate, wonder, marvel, anguish, reveal, revel, surrender, achieve, drink, drug, sober up, heal, hurt, burn, shine, refresh, hydrate, stretch, pull, twist, turn, trust, mess up, win, lose, serve, take, give, honor, betray, show up, open up, close down, come out, shine, learn, revive, return, return, return, age, turn up the music, dance, sing, fall down, get up, and eventually, die.
We are here for all of that and more.
And it's not meant to be fair or easy or even simple. It is meant to be ours, though. Ours.
And I wonder—what would it be like if instead of striving to be good based on someone else's rule, or skating between the lines of not enough and too much, or keeping up with whoever the fucks—we were charged with creating, honoring, and living by our own value systems?
Systems built on support, love, mutual respect, kindness, care, and curiosity about this Grand Adventure we are each on.
Each with our own inner castles. Each with our own dark, shadowy corners where we join John of the Cross for ego deaths and as many of our soul’s dark nights as it needs.
Our own shaded rest stops for replenishing our empty cups. Our own ballrooms for dancing and reveling when our cups are full. Bedrooms for making love in, and gardens to soak up the glory of the sun and the wisdom of the moon.
If the Kingdom of Heaven is within, why are we all so busy looking for what we are without?
We are not meant to be here forever. We are not meant to perfect anything—not even how to live or how to die. We get happily ever fleeting moments, but not ever after. Nothing’s ever after until… well, until we’re ever after.
But truly, none of us know that until we're there. I hear it all makes sense there. And maybe that's the point. Maybe it's not supposed to make sense here.
And God bless us all for trying, over and over, to understand it.
God bless us all for all the things we are trying to understand in every single second in a place that is so deeply un-understandable.
So no, we're not meant to be here forever. But God bless us for being here now.
Should this reflection have stirred something in you, I’d welcome you to tap the heart below — a simple blessing that lets these words travel on❤️
Being human is a courageous act. ❤️