Sun Soaked Days

I used to be pretty scared of the dark. We'd keep the light in the hallway by my room on at night, but I'd still get scared looking out the window at the dark street.

Over time, I've gotten used to the dark, and it doesn't scare me as much. I'm quite the night owl, and I often get back home in the middle of the night on the weekends. It's a comfortable feeling now, walking back to my house from my car in the darkness at 2 AM. Maybe the darkness just isn't as scary in San Luis Obispo.

The fear of the darkness itself may be mostly gone, but the night still weighs heavy on my mind. When the sun sets, my psyche braces itself for the worst. My worries become stronger, my fears more pronounced. The same thing happens to me when it's overcast (although not when it's raining, interestingly).

In The Anthropocene Reviewed, John Green says the following:

You can't see the future coming--not the terrors, for sure, but you also can't see the wonders that are coming, the moments of light-soaked joy that await each of us.

This book is where I started thinking of my good days as "sun soaked days", ones where the darkness is banished from the corners of my mind and everything feels like it's gonna be alright.

Today is one such day. The sky is blue, the sun is out, California is green. My worries feel a little further away, a little less important. It's like the sun is burning them all away, for now. It feels like I'm gonna be okay.

There's a difference between believing in a thing and believing that thing is true. This is the core of faith of all kinds, believing despite lack of proof, believing because the belief itself is what matters. I'm deeply unreligious, but even I understand what that sort of faith means to a person.

I don't have any way of knowing for certain that things are going to be okay. My worries will come back, and they won't be any less real. Much is happening in the world that I should be worried about, beyond my own problems.

On a sunny day like today, I think it's okay to let go of it all, just for a little bit. You don't need to be worried twenty four hours a day. Maybe it's okay to be entirely happy for some of those hours, to not guilt yourself into feeling less happy. Putting something you're carrying down for a bit doesn't mean you won't pick it back up again when you feel up to it.

There's a quote by Edward Abbey that we talked about in my Environmental Ethics class this quarter:

Be as I am - a reluctant enthusiast....a part-time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it’s still here.

If you spend all your time worrying, you lose sight of why you're worrying in the first place. I used to be so worried about losing the good in my life that I spent less time appreciating it.

The problems will always be there. But so will the joy, if you're willing to let yourself feel it.