130.

do you ever have those evenings that feel like they cap themselves off just right? that meet you at the bottom of the stairs at the very moment you open the door and you say, "oh hello!" perfect timing. 

i, like many humans (or maybe not) grapple with concerns of selfhood, honesty, and integrity. sometimes i probably grapple too much. i sometimes tailspin in these thoughts and in self-critical moments feel like i become the girl who is lost in those thoughts. i fear, sometimes, that i am the friend who is always "having a tough time" with x, or y, or even z.

today in a conversation with someone who knows me very well i expressed that very concern. i said, "i think i am a girl, a friend, a human at work in the world who 'has a hard time' too often." adding that i didn't really want to be the friend that was always going through some sort of something, thinking through some big question. 'having a hard time' if you will. 

she kindly retorted that in her opinion it is that i seem to be self-aware (hyper aware at times) of myself and challenges i face, and that i think through these challenges actively, openly, and seek advice from others. to her, it was less of my hard time having and more of a searching, seeking, not-so-settling something in me. it was nice to hear that from the receiving end.

and yet...the result of this conversation was me wondering aloud if there was a way i could not be that. if i could think less, seek less, settle more, or just take a rest from that side of myself more often.

and then...

i went to hear Junot Diaz read (for the third time because I love him) and during the question and  answer session someone asked him about his consistency with creating endlessly flawed characters. his tangential response landed him talking about his perceptions of the artist and the artists perception of life as he had come to understand it. he commented on the folks who tend to say, "the glass is half full! life is great!" (an attitude that, by and large, his characters do not harness) and suggested that those folks don't seem to be paying attention. he said that he appreciated the folks who get into the thoughts, who grapple and struggle. he called them artists, the ones whose ideas and emotional concerns get tangled up in a sort of awareness of themselves and the world that sometimes leaves them at odds with both...the sort of folks who say, "the glass is half empty, and life is great." 

i nodded and whispered very quietly, "thank you."