As of late, my morning routine has somewhat changed.
Having set an alarm the night before for ten minutes before the forecasted time of the sunrise, I awoke the next morning. There is just enough time for me to make a cup of tea and unlock the door to my rear patio. On a rickety patio chair I sit, still in whatever pajamas I had worn when I fell into bed the night before because I do not care who will see me. The heat from the hot mug, warms my hands and the warmth from the sun touches my very soul as I watch it peak out from below the horizon. Most people assume that wisdom can only be gained through experience; through years of enduring lengthy days and even longer nights. But I would like to believe that I found, if not the answer, the consolation to lifetimes of sorrow. I found it there in that sunrise.
The sun rose slowly and brought with it: the sound of hundreds of birds humming in the nearby trees; crickets whipping the moisture of the morning dew from their wings. The wind stirred the trees as the orange and cotton candy colored clouds streaks crossed the sky.
The morning was beautiful and there before my mind's eye, I discovered a more tangible meaning to one of those most frequently used clichés.
The sun rose as it had the morning before and the morning before that and every morning that this ancient earth had seen in its many millennia of existence. I suspect that it will continue to rise every morning that follows until it is commanded to cease doing so. In this realization, I came to understand just how insignificant we are in the grand scheme of things.
Life goes on around us, with us or without us, and despite our internal and external turmoil. No matter how much pain we feel or how much we bleed; even if it seems as though the world is falling apart around us, it never does. The cycle continues uninterrupted: the tide comes in and out, the world keeps on spinning and the sun still rises and sets.
Somehow written in the first visible clouds of the morning was the lesson: Life Goes On.
Its not the most eloquent truths but a truth nonetheless. If you want to survive with your sanity, you must learn to move past your pain. Don't you let it keep you stagnant. I'm not urging you to favor longsuffering. I'm not suggesting that you shouldn't hurt either; that would be like asking you to deny your humanity. Cry if you must; scream if you need to. Submit to your pain momentarily but never surrender to it. Acknowledge that you are hurting and gradually your soul will begin to forget that pain. What you keep hidden, even from yourself will only burden you down.
One morning, you should try it; there is something so liberating about watching the horizon give way to a new day. Maybe with a cup of coffee. If you're like me and you're not much of a coffee drinker, you'll chose tea or some fruit juice; whatever your preference entails.
Maybe you won't see what I see. Maybe the earth and all your heartaches won't seem to melt away the very moment your eyes behold it. Maybe I'm just a writer, high on metaphors and drawing conclusions where they don't belong.
Either way, its still a lovely sight.
