#Hanami 88 | The Imperfect Balance
Life in Blue and the Seesaw
It's astonishing how quickly you go from feeling in control to completely losing your center. This week, I returned to Instagram to reconnect with people I can only reach there. It made me feel bad for not being perfect, and doubts resurfaced about whether it's an exaggeration to "abandon" the connection with the world. Damn it, if you don't connect, you miss out on half of what your friends are experiencing. Does no one share things one-on-one anymore? Must everything be broadcast to the community?
Beyond the idea of existing for others and not for oneself, what gives me butterflies these days is the struggle to maintain balance. It's the only welcoming place I can think of. Doesn't it seem incredibly difficult not to be one thing or another, not to be in one place or another? I know I'm explaining this terribly. Don't worry if you're confused; it's me, not you. I believe —though I'm still figuring it out— there must be a wonderful place between what you want and what you can be. Our lives are defined by so many verbs: to have, to do, to eat, to feel, to believe, etc.
Considering I'm at a point where I've decided to dream big —project, as the gurus would say— this inability to balance the possible and the impossible has me frazzled.
I was reading Milena when I remembered that what I truly enjoy are the small steps, the minor achievements, and the manageable happiness. Not having social media on my phone gives me calm and gifts me time. Writing a few sentences is already fantastic, finishing a Hanami is an extra ball of joy. Getting up, putting on moisturizer, grabbing the van, and ending up reading in some blue place feels like a stroke of luck. It's not about the blue, or the place, or the book, or the walk, but about deciding —perhaps— that it would make me happy and trying it.
«What does one need to be happy?
To be happy is not so difficult, there are not so many things needed, not so many people, nor so many trips, nor so many books. I believe that, in the good times, I am happy at least once a day, even more so. It doesn't make a difference to long for the time to not get distracted or to see the Parthenon or to be by the Mediterranean. It doesn't make a difference to be exorbitantly wealthy or to have an enormous house. It's not necessary to buy a designer outfit, a dress twice the size of the average cowboy's. It's not necessary to write two good pages a day because you know that's impossible and if you asked your mother once more, she would deny you again. It's not necessary to have great friends, it's enough to have a few people you respect and admire or with whom you've shared a part of your youth, someone who has taken your hand at a critical or human moment.
To be happy, you don't need to write a masterpiece, nor for someone to wake up by your side and support you every day of your life. You don't need that men wear trousers too tight or shirts too small. You don't need to stop treating the tramps and all the weirdos. You don't need to go to Paris, Italy and London every year. Nor wear cashmere sweaters and silk pajamas, that's fine, it doesn't matter. You don't need to win the Nobel Prize. And I can eat ham that is not of the highest quality. You don't need to take pictures of everything and be the center of attention all the time. I don't need to be extremely rich or the best in a yoga class, or that everything be mayo all the time. To be happy, I just need that you write me this.»
—Milena Busquets
I still don't really know what I'm talking about in this letter, though I feel something spinning in my head like an uncontrolled metal ball about to fit into a tiny hole after circling it a million times. Despite not reaching any clear conclusion —or maybe I have— I feel like I've uncorked something inside. I no longer feel bad or like a failure. As Milena says about being happy, this moment is probably one of them.
Perhaps the balance I'm seeking isn't in a fixed point, but in a constant seesaw between what I am and what I want to be, between connection and disconnection, between big goals and small steps. And I imagine that in that back-and-forth is where life truly exists. That's all.
Thank you for reading me.
Many kisses,
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