This Too Shall Pass

Trauma, like everything else, is typically effaced by time. The anniversary of the events of Memorial Day, 1995 still affected me deeply at the 24-year mark, but once I moved to Sunset full-time the following year, those old serpents began to grow quieter; last year they were overshadowed by the death of my best friend, and this year the anniversary was marked by little more than unpleasant memories despite spending it alone, which in the past was a bad idea. The weathering away of the aftereffects of trauma appears to have been mostly the result of a combination of time, therapy, and daily cannabis usage, but I can’t discount the contributions made by age, wisdom, and perspective. Those who fear mortality are fixated on the fact that all good things die, ignoring the fact that bad things do as well. Spiritual immaturity obsesses about the former to the exclusion of the latter, but the insight which comes in the fullness of time, assuming we allow it to, brings the realization that…