Summer Solstice
It’s 12:31am June 20th 2024. Today is the first day of Summer. The Summer Solstice is what they call it which means every day from here until December 21st will get shorter and shorter. Gradually, of course. In a life where ignorance is bliss, I miss being unaware of these things. Imagine knowing a funeral awaits as soon as the umbilical cord is cut. Though that’s reality, reality isn’t always set in at the time of. Sometimes I spend the moment thinking of what happened to living in the moment then I come to the conclusion I’d be better off knowing the moment than the thought of it, but perhaps the wisdom to experience the moment comes with acceptance, an acceptance I lack possession of due to my need to understand things.
When you’re a kid, they encourage you to question things, but what they don’t tell you is curiosity comes with a need for closure through understanding. I’ve spent my whole life genuinely curious. As a child, cars and weather fascinated me. How is it possible my mom can get in a metal box, sit in the driver’s seat, and go places. We’re stationary, yet we’re moving faster than when my body is in motion. How do the Sun and the Moon follow me everywhere I go? No matter where they are in the sky, I can’t escape them. As I grew into my adolescence, it was manufacturing and mass production that captivated me. Damn-near everything we come across is mass-produced in an identical matter. For example, there are billions of bolts quality-checked to an exact specification, manufactured to produce something else which is also mass-produced. To this day, I still think it’s insane. In order to mass produce anything, you also have to design and many times, mass produce the machine that will do the mass producing. I could go on, but I digress.
In my 20’s, I spent quite some time trying to understand love and how unfathomable it is that two souls can collide in a world of 7 billion people and share reciprocal feelings for each other. It’s even more mind-boggling when you think of all the things that had to happen from the beginning of time in order for life to develop into the form of human-beings with emotional depth from a biological standpoint, then from there, how many decisions had to have been made for those two lovers to end up crossing paths in such a vast, yet connected, world that they had nothing to do with. Love is special but isn’t always treated nor appreciated as such. They say the love you give will always come back to you in some way. This past winter taught me the love that comes back can be separate from reciprocation. Just as God works in mysterious ways, the Universe acts accordingly in a similar manner. Love does come back around, but it’s at your discretion whether you recognize it as such, much less make the decision to let it into your world. How much you love someone will always be a reflection of you and your capacity to give rather than your vision of who they are. Though you have an unlimited amount of love within you to give, make sure you’re on the receiving end of your love at times, too.
Love is one of those things I don’t think I’ll ever understand. I believe I’ve accepted that, but I sometimes I unaccept things due to the stubborn nature of my pride. In college, there was a party I was invited to by a girl I had known since Freshman year. I asked if I could bring a couple of friends, and she agreed. I was always a house party person more than I ever was a bar or a club person. In a bar or in a club, you can’t talk to people. Plus, I don’t dance, nor do I drink, so I would end up people watching the whole night. People watching is cool, but I desire familiarity and warmth in places filled with strangers. Though house parties can get loud, I’ve always liked the idea of finding somewhere quiet amongst the chaos to get to know someone. That’s real intimacy to me. Up until that night, I’ve had plenty with this girl, but this time was different. She had been seeing someone. I knew who she was seeing because he lived on the same floor as me during our tenure in Moore Hall. He always showed love, so I had nothing negative to say about him. I just couldn’t understand it. How did those two end up together out of all people? Maybe it was my attraction to her, or maybe it was because I overvalued the intimate moments we shared with each other. In between the chattering of college kids who thought they were wiser than their age, the smell of cheap alcohol via under-age drinking, and the music that would end up being a part of the soundtrack to our lives, there I sat. In a house I had never been to, on a couch, watching her and him share intimate moments with each other trying to understand it all. I’m not talking about public displays of affection, more like being beer pong partners and introducing each other to others because they’ve heard about one another. When the party ended and after a mandatory post-party Cookout run, I drove home that night with a newfound perspective that love is meant to be experienced, not understood. Her and I would eventually have our time together, and when it ended, I didn’t understand it.
That’s when I re-accepted love is meant to be felt, rather than understood.
These days, I find myself trying to make sense of life. I keep hearing life is a short trip, and in moments of desperation and pain, I view that as a positive thing but these moments never last long. Isn’t it ironic the longest thing we will ever experience will feel short in retrospect? It feels like an injustice of the Universe sometimes, doesn’t it…
Frequently, I question if I am living up to my potential or if I am making the most of the things I have along with the opportunities presented to me. This life has so much to offer, yet most of us will never see nor experience a quarter of it. In order to live a fulfilled life, you have to be willing to take risks to experience new things despite what routine, fear, and comfort tell us. How many more firsts can I experience before the feeling of new becomes old, before new no longer exists in the world I’m living in? I’m far from then, but these thoughts still come to mind. My doctor calls that anxiety, while my therapist calls it rumination. I think it’s just another Wednesday night. Maybe that’s more eye-opening than I give it credit for. Maybe I should be more concerned with experiencing everything first before I worry myself about running out of things to experience. Maybe I should fear missing out rather than what’s going to be left.
And some nights I do wonder what’s going to be left for me? This year I took a chance and put music out, which is something I’ve always wanted to do. I’m more open now than ever of my aspirations to be a musician and a writer. I used to feel ashamed of telling people, but I think I’ve let that fear of being judged go. Not fully, but to an extent where I can manage to step out of my comfort zone here and there. As I’m writing this, two of my songs surpassed 1000 plays on Spotify. Doesn’t seem like a lot compared to others, but it means something to me. I get lost in the potential of the music and where it could take myself along with the people I love and cherish so dearly. Then I think of all the things I haven’t, yet want to experience.
What’s it going to feel like to start a family, to be a father? Will I ever be able to reciprocate the love that was given to me in this lifetime? What’s it going to feel like when I buy my first LFA? Which countries will I have the best times of my life in? What is it going to feel like when I win my first Grammy? What about when I sell out PNC in Raleigh and TD in Boston and MSG in New York? What will it feel like the moment I meet my wife? Will I know it at the time, or will I show up to our first date jaded from previous experiences? Where will I build a house to raise a family? When it hits me at dinner on a random Tuesday night with the family that I made it, how will I excuse myself from the table to have a moment of solitude? Do I ever get to experience the Grand Prix at Monaco? Will life ever be as cinematic as my favorite movies? Will love ever be as romantic and as vibrant as the photos I used to see on Tumblr?? Do I ever truly let fear, self-doubt, and the comfort of a 9-5 go? Will the fantasy of my dreams feel as good as I made them out to be when I finally live them? Or will I be let down and learn that being hopefully naïve can be just as damaging as it is to be cynically pessimistic?
Will I ever understand these things?
If not, will I possess the awareness to realize I can’t comprehend them?
So many questions and only a lifetime to find the answers, but for now we’ll begin with summer.