Living more consciously

I have been much happier these days. Back a few weeks ago I wrote No soy yo. I am not myself. I was living numbly awhile. I hadn't felt myself in so long, that I wondered if I ever would feel it again. By 'it' I mean that I wanted to engage in the world. I wanted to smile more and make my nerdy, dry puns even when no one understood them and I would just seem like an odd character. I wanted to say Good Morning to people I ran by on the bike path. I wanted to care about how I dressed, not that I have "style" but, shall we say, I have a style. My style. I wanted to talk to random people, ride the bus rather than drive, cook dinner and bring my lunch. All of this, I just didn't feel like I had time to do before. Something changed. Finally! I feel this weight lifted off me. I am myself again! I feel the same sort of confidence that I had when I first moved back to the states from Peru. I got through "tough times." I did the independent thing. I could make things happen and be myself. Be myself. Be my self.

I think part of being me is that I am much more compassionate toward other people. Why? Maybe it's because as I engage with the world around me, I start to care more about the people and environment around me, too. Maybe it's because I feel a broader spectrum of emotions just by living more consciously. The happy is happier; the sad is more sad. I like this way of living. I have always thought this: I would rather feel something than feel nothing. That is, I would rather feel emotions strongly, than not feel anything at all.

As part of this living more consciously and feeling emotions more deeply, I cried twice this week. Both times it happened because I just was hit with a wave of profound emotion. I felt sad for the way things are, at once inexplicable and completely understandable. The first time was when I was cooking dinner and mindlessly listening to the news on the radio. The compassionate voice from the little black hand radio on my table reported that one third of Haiti's entire population died in the earthquake. One third. Thirty-three percent. I can't really fathom the extent of suffering in that country, on that island, right now. The second time I cried was when I was on the bus home from school yesterday. A crew of high school girls behind me were talking about ethnicity. Of course, the way the were chattering was not so sophisticated: energetic, full of "like," and testing their new ideas by saying them aloud to each other. "Wait, what if I married an Asian guy, then my kids would be... 3/4 Asian?" What made me feel a profound wave of emotion, though, was the man sitting in front of me. Obviously frazzled and unkempt, it was clear he was a war veteran. He kept swearing and repeating this one phrase over and over and over. "Shit, man, I killed people over there!" I couldn't help it. Tears came. That did, and does, strike me as a moment I will remember for a long time. I was - and am - sad for this man whose whole experience of life has been shaded with guilt and constant memory of his inhumanity. Sad for the people he killed over there, whoever they are and wherever there is.

Living consciously...