Every moment we have is temporary.

There is something wired in us to believe in the infinite (an ever-expanding universe, the gods of our ancestors, souls of the departed), and that seeps into the minutes of our days and nights.

But nothing is actually guaranteed. This time next year, things will be different. How? To be determined. All that is certain is that it will.

I thought this knowledge would give me despair, but instead I find the opposite to be true. I often find myself looking around in one of these temporary moments (a circle of friends who have walked through fire with me, the bright desert sky on a rare clear day, the slow bloom of a child’s smile when they hand over their trust/their heart/you cannot separate the two, the soft weight of the sleeping cat on my chest), and there is not despair—but raw joy in the beauty of the temporary.

I don’t believe everything happens for a reason, but I can define meaning from every event in my life.

Not one of us leaves this life without having known loss and pain. Not one of us leaves this life without having known a moment of grace. I used to think if I had one, I could not have the other.

I have learned differently since. Beauty and grief share the same heart.

This bothness, this mix of light and dark, are not the Scales of Justice though—they are not always evenly balanced. Some days (weeks, months, years) have gone by where pain of the temporary outweighs the joy.

There is no right or wrong way to feel. There is only where I am at in the moment. And I can give myself the gift of honoring myself, and where I am in the moment. And each (temporary) moment after that.

The infinite (universe/god/soul) holds space for us and will part for joy when we are ready.