Meaning
Wednesday, May 10th, 2023
Such a shame flowers must die. I’ve always wished they’d live forever. Though, in order for something new to grow, something else must die. That is the nature of things.
I weigh the nature of things heavily and seemingly every day. The passage of time reminds me of this. It’s almost like I’m a spectator inside a stadium, but I’m the only one there. Not many seem to share the same love for contemplation as I, and that’s okay—I don’t blame them.
Yet still, that makes them strangers to me. Perhaps people are nothing more than that, strangers to me. And that, too, is okay.
It’s like I’m drowning but every now and then I can just barely break the surface to breathe. I just wish I could breathe. I hate this feeling and at the same time I love it. How backwards is that?
What is this aberration that’s found itself latched onto me? This paradox I cannot seem to shake? Please, I only wish to know of its purpose. Maybe then, my understanding of it would take my sorrow away.
There’s a memory of mine that’s been recurring to me, and I don’t know why. I can’t remember when it was, but it was beautiful. I had been standing outside among the oak trees of home and I looked up. Hundreds of monarch butterflies rested in the leaves, their ginger-spotted wings opening and closing like some kind soft dance meant only for me. I wish I could describe what I experienced then, but perhaps its beauty is not meant to be shared.
Purpose, purpose, and a shame flowers must die. Why does this theme keep repeating? I know my heart is like the sky. It has its sunny days just as often as its stormy ones but that does not account for this theme. Surely it must mean something.
I know we try to conquer everyone but ourselves—is that it? Is that what my thoughts are trying to whisper to me? A piece of me lies dormant, unfettered by my conquest for fulfillment, or a part of me is preparing to die? Is this my forewarning? A hint at preparation for the undoubted pain to follow from a sliver of me that will soon depart? Oh God, please take my fear away from me.
Life is like a harvest, and you must first sow before you reap. Dear God, as certain as tax and as hard as stone, I have placed my dreams upon the altar. Though I don’t believe I’m cut from the same cloth as my peers and my lungs are not iron as theirs, to an ant, even a paper mâché swan would be a monument. Whatever payment I must render, I will give it freely. My solitude is a testament to this.
My God, I just wish to know. To know the meaning of all this. If You will it, I have decades more to live and I feel no closer to understanding the world than if I were a child! I know I must give it time and there may not be meaning in all things, but surely if I know solitude intimately, then the fruits of my labor must mean something!
Yes, I know there may not exist meaning in all things, but if subtle whispers at significance about the world’s quiet wonder come to me from my own thoughts and dreams, then on the road to knowing myself I will treat them as flowers.
Such a shame flowers must die, but maybe if I write about them, they will live forever.