life is suffering
since my ptsd diagnosis, i’ve been thinking a lot about suffering. recently, i had a realization i just can’t shake. humans can live with a lot of suffering. i know this isn't anything groundbreaking or new - according to buddhist philosophy, life is suffering - i just started to understand it more deeply than before. i've been thinking a lot about my parents and grandparents who endured wars, poverty, terminal illness, yet still showed up for their children, their jobs, their communities, every day. how can someone suffer so much and still continue on with life? survival? resilience, i guess? as the child of immigrants, i hear these words a lot but find they are thin descriptors of our experiences. my mom took care of us out of survival, for sure, but it doesn’t encapsulate the nights we spent, holding each other, in tears. perhaps suffering is a part of our mind. not that it makes it any less real or painful but that we can shape it to fit the life we want. what is the life i want, though? i'm still figuring that out.
what i do know is that the world can demand so much of us, despite our suffering. i want to live in a world that shows grace for our suffering, for everyone. but first, i have to start with myself.