An Eore Day

Sometimes, oh, say for the last week or so for example, I get a bit blue because I feel what could amount to as post "I went to a top five grad school for my discipline and I now work part time in a grocery store" depression. I feel like I'm not on the right track, like I'm a disappointment to my community, inferior to my peers, and generally not good enough to convert oxygen to carbon dioxide.

During these times I have to remind myself that since the cancer I have had the realization that all that matters is that I make a difference in others' lives. That my day makes someone else's life better, easier, because life is generally so hard for most of us to bear is what should be the point of my life. This is true, I believe, since when I got the cancer all of a sudden little else mattered to me than making good in the world. Sometimes I get tangled in my post "iwtfgsmdinwptgs" depression and I forget what is important. I forget the world around me and become surrounded in my own pity. It is a deep well to trudge out of.

Poetry makes me happy. Making others happy or more comfortable makes me feel like I belong. Like I deserve to be here. Like converting oxygen to carbon dioxide is the least of my talents. Buddhism is a good avenue to walk down when trying to remember the important things in life: that this is all temporary, that everything you need is right here, in this moment, that to help others is the greatest achievement. We all live until one day we die. It sounds easy and sad but it's not: its hard to remember and so relieving when you believe it. I am here right now, if I, everyday, do something to make someone else's life easier to bear, happier, worth living, then everyday's passing is not something to mourn, it is a miracle, it is a place to exist in, the present, a place to be thankful for the recognition of. I spend too much time worrying about the future and regretting the past, those places don't exist. Just right now is real. It is the hardest thing to remember, to believe, especially when I live in the make-believe world of poetry. Maybe it isn't make-believe. If it isn't make-believe, what is it? I am asking you-my poets, what is it poetry to you? What is important and real?

This post is all loose ends and beginnings, don't try to tie it up, but I do wonder what you guys think of these things, of life and death and poetry and what makes waking up worth it to you.