Today’s quote is actually the ending of a longer quote:

Allow beauty to shatter you regularly. The loveliest people are the ones who have been burnt and broken and torn at the seams, yet still send their open hearts into the world to mend with love again, and again, and again.

You must allow yourself to feel your life while you’re in it. – Victoria Erickson

That last part of the quote really spoke to me.

I always get annoyed when people tell me I feel too much. Too strongly.

I believe that if we don’t let things get to us and we don’t let ourselves experience the feelings we’re having, we’re not really doing them justice. They won’t disappear just because we’re not expressing them (worse, they sit dormant and explode at the most inopportune times). And Brené Brown has said many times that if we numb the bad, we also numb the good. So, yet, another reason to let ourselves feel it all.

I look at my kids and they experience life with so much more acuteness than I do. When something bad happens, it’s a huge disaster. Big tears. Super sadness. It’s like the world is over. This person is no longer my friend. On and on. But then when the good stuff happens it’s just as strong. I LOVE this. It’s the best EVER. I am so HAPPY. And on and on.

But you know the best part?

Because they let themselves experience it fully, step into it and own it, it doesn’t drag on. They feel it and then they move on to the next moment. And it’s over. The expressed whatever it was they were feeling and it’s not in their system anymore.

That’s what I love the most.

I believe we all could learn so much from the little kids in our lives. I want to allow myself to fully feel my life while i am in it. I want to live all of it. Feel all of it. Let it out.

And then make space for the next thing.

Today’s quote is:

To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all. – Oscar Wilde

This is one of those quotes that made me cringe when I read it. The truth of it hit me so strongly that I couldn’t breathe for a moment.

The fact is, there are so many days, weeks, months when I am existing, and barely at that. I am just making it through my days, doing the things I’ve set for myself and the things that need to get done. And even those don’t really get done.

At this very moment, my clean laundry is piled up high, my floor is full of toys, the kitchen table has piles of papers, and my hands are covered with paint. I haven’t even begun to write my todo list for two weeks and I am hundreds of emails behind in my inbox. Random important things that I have to do pop into my head and I keep thinking I should at least write them down.

But I don’t want to do any of those things.

And I don’t.

I sit and read my book or write here or do some more art.

I am not even existing today but really in the place where I just avoid everything. I am numbing but not with food or internet, with just avoidance.

So when I read a quote like this, I feel like screaming.

Yes, I want to say, I want to live! I don’t want to merely Exist.

I don’t want it to feel so hard.

And then I remember that tomorrow is another day and I get to choose all over again.

So tonight, I’ll do a little bit, I’ll barely exist. I’ll take a walk and then go to sleep. Tomorrow, maybe tomorrow, can be the day I can take on the task of living.