On Waterfalls and Life in General

I was reading an article from The Cut this morning, called “25 Famous Women On Getting Older”. I like reading these kinds of articles, because I like the idea of liking the idea of getting older. I also feel like I have to start working towards that now (along with my anti-aging skin regimen… it’s a balance). Considering that most of the advice boils down to “stop being worried about getting older and just live life”, I think I may be taking the wrong approach… But it is what it is. 

The quote from this article that stood out to me the most was from Sigourney Weaver,  who is one of the actresses credited with really creating the sci-fi superheroine character genre. She says about aging, 

“When you’re young there’s so much now that you can’t take it in. It’s pouring over you like a waterfall. When you’re older, it’s less intense, but you’re able to reach out and drink it. I love being older.”

I literally burst into tears reading this for the first time. As a young person living in her first apartment, with her first big girl job in her first big city, life does feel like a waterfall. Add in a global pandemic, civil unrest, and an election? There is so much going on that I feel like I emotionally can’t differentiate between the things that matter and the things that don’t. 

I have cried three times today. It is 3:00 pm. The first time was listening to the mother of a young woman killed in a car crash sob to a Telemundo reporter, then because one of my plants had been infested with mealy-worms, and then again at this quote. My heart can’t differentiate between the truly tragic, the kinda sad (though mealy-worms are vanquish-able), and the quietly profound. I am feeling so much all the time that I just emote wildly, at full power, no matter what the occasion. 

I think the reason that this Sigourney Weaver quote made me emotional is because it gave me permission to feel the way I do. Like, maybe it’s not just me being wholly unable to regulate my own emotions. Maybe I’m just experiencing so many new things that my body and my brain can’t quite keep up. Maybe that’s normal.

I know I have described this in earlier posts, but I often choose to think of my emotions as waves coming over a beach. Emotions come in and emotions go out. Depending on the tide they may be stronger or weaker, but no matter how they come in, they always eventually go out. And while this metaphor holds true for emotions, I think Sigourney is right — Life is like a waterfall. That shit does not stop for anything. 

So what is there to do? You’ll never stop it, you’ll never change it, and you’ll never slow it down. I guess all you can do is just stop fighting it. Which like, does that make life easier to handle in the moment? No. But I have found it helpful, sometimes, late at night when I can’t sleep, to take a deep breath and feel everything at once. The whole waterfall, if you will. And then to remember that whatever is stressing me out is just one moment of my life. Just oooone piece of a large and complex story. And if the thing stressing me out turns out badly, then it will be an excellent life lesson for me to pass on to my grandchildren, godchildren, or some random teenager on a plane someday. 

So when you feel like life is a waterfall of now, just remember that you’re not alone, and apparently it gets better. Oh, and enjoy the adrenaline rush. As many many older and wiser women than me have said, you only get one life so you may as well stop caring so much and just enjoy it.

On a personal note, I would like to apologize for being so inconsistent with writing things down recently, I’ve been stuck in a waterfall believe it or not. I appreciate all y’all who read these so much, thank you so so much for being here yet again. 

xoxo,