I wrote all this an hour after I find out that my Grandma had passed away a few months ago. While I’ve added a few words here or there, I decided to keep it formatted as is, with repetition and some things that don’t make perfect sense.
It is my belief that each of us were put on this earth for specific reasons and with certain talents.
Some were made to create unique music. Some were put here to think, and to discover how the universe works. Others to make people have better bodies, or to cure disease.
One of the reasons I firmly believe I was put on this earth was to write.
But not SEO “top 5 juice recipes” bullshit writing…I’m talking about books, words, poems, and literature that makes you stop what you’re doing and read every single word.
I just found out about 2 hours ago that my Grandma (or Bubby, as the name in Yiddish or slang Hebrew goes), passed away.
I do some of my best writing in the moment of intense emotions, and I’d like to write something to remember her by.
She was a wonderful person, who I can’t remember not smiling any day of her life…even on her final ones as she lay in bed, cancer stealing her life away.
This is for you Bubby:
When the autumn comes nothing else matters.
All the hustle and movement to climb all the ladders falls away.
Nobody cares about more money. Someone texting you back. Catching in on the newest craze, fad, or location.
It’s all just notches on the belt that you won’t even remember or will blur together anyways.
Because the autumn brings you back to exactly where you are now, to what’s important.
You don’t care about that random pain or ache, that problem, your little insecurities, or anything else.
Because in reality, that shit doesn’t matter anyways.
When the autumn comes you can’t think of anything else.
You’re pulled into second by second thinking.
Whether it’s the toss of hair, a sound, the pitter patter of rain on the pavement as you walk through the storm…
The storm that threatens to pull you in.
That’s all the autumn gives you.
Why would you care to compare yourself when in autumn?
Why would it even matter what anyone else is doing?
The judgement, the shame, anything…
It doesn’t matter.
Because autumn tells you what’s most important.
Try tweeting or Instagraming that. You want some more likes?
Clients don’t matter. Dating doesn’t matter. Achievement doesn’t matter. Pushing doesn’t matter. Getting new hobbies doesn’t matter.
Does any of it matter anyways? Is that really living?
What are the real important things in your life?
I mean think. Now. What would you really care about if you lost?
Is it your Facebook pictures? Your shares? Your bar tab?
Your friends? Family? Memories? Health?
When autumn comes to you you’ll know. You’ll see other things but you’ll really know what matters.
The trick is to remember that for the future.
When you look back on your life, what do you really remember?
It is only the patterns that happened, but what was important?
Nobody cared about the clothes you wore. Nobody cared about things going perfectly.
The only thing you remember are the patterns, the experiences, the slow, memories with the special people that come to you.
The people that hit you in the gut and won’t let go, like a knife turning…and they don’t even mean to…
It’s just when you know who really means that much to you.
And people KILL to try to find these people, there’s billion dollar industries built on trying to find these people.
The loneliness and isolation we all feel, predicated by marketing and companies…
Hell, I admit I’m doing it to a certain extent to. I can’t lie.
I do have good intentions but I am doing it.
I don’t know where this is going or if it even flows or makes sense.
I’m not sure.
But when I think of my grandma, and I guess the coolness or possibly being overseas I do feel bad — that I was willing to miss it. Where do the emotions guide us right and wrong with how things should be?
What is actually real vs. mis-guided information?
Maybe it’s not to question. But just to feel.
To feel sad that someone you love is gone. To feel that hurt.
Not to try and mask it by going into a billion other people and hoping that the pain will go away.
Not to busy oneself with other things.
But to fully experience life and the pain as it is.
For without dark and autumn, there’s no light or spring.
So when does autumn end?
Sometimes, it’s not up to us. In fact, a lot of the times it’s not…
We try to pretend like we have a lot of control, but we really don’t.
And people will hurt us or try to move us…there’s sometimes not much we can do.
But it all really doesn’t matter. Those little things don’t matter.
The one client you charged too little.
The one person you never followed up with, hung out with, or never called you back.
The one down day you had.
Autumn doesn’t care.
It will make sure you don’t care.
Autumn will let you fully see and appreciate how beautiful the spring is, the highs. The highs that follow the lowest lows are things people would gladly give everything they have for, but they won’t take the autumn.
Sometimes you don’t get to make that choice. Sometimes autumn comes whether you like it or not.
And it’s just how you’re going to see it through.
Let me punch you now, straight in the stomach, and see if looking up the most relevant hashtags reaaaallly matters.
Keep things in perspective.
Otherwise when autumn comes, you’ll never know what’s important.
So let me ask: What is important to you?
Dedicated in loving memory to Malka Mirsky.