bitter;better

I've been writing a lot of music lately.

I don't know if any of it is really good, but it helps me and doesn't hurt anybody, so I will keep doing it.

Somebody said once that, after experiencing pain, you either get better or you get bitter. I really want to choose the former. And I also like to think that I have that choice, that we all do. It's nothing so tangible as typing these words onto blogger, but in a way, we write our stories. We don't write what the supporting characters in our stories do or say, as much as God knows I'd like to sometimes, but we do write the main character's story.

We write ourselves.

I have also been thinking a lot about the difference between reacting and acting. Like how the former is subjective to what is going on around us--read: not in our control. Which ultimately means that, since our choices are in direct correlation to somebody else's choices, we are not in control of our own choices. Which leads to us doing things we never thought we'd do before. Not everybody ends up in the kind of extreme situations we hear about on the news by happenstance. Somewhere along the way they decide to give up their autonomy, to be like a wave tossed by the sea and when the sea turns angry, they turn too.

But then there is acting.

Choosing how I will act, what I will say, who I will love, and where I will be no matter what anybody around me does. It's not exactly natural, I think. It's easy to simply put back into the universe what has come my way. But what if the things that have come my way aren't good? Do I then become like them and return the favor?

No, that leads to bitterness.

Not betterness.

And that's not a word.

But all this to say, I am really trying to deal with pain--any kind of pain--in a healthy way. To talk to trusted people. Write music. Pray. Read good, beautiful books. Walk thirteen miles in the wee hours of the morning without any ID or phone. Okay, so the jury is still out on whether or not that last one is healthy, but...Isn't that at least exercise? Which most doctors would say was healthy, right?

But music.

It helps me a lot. And when all I really want to do is walk into a wall as hard as I can, it's nice to be able to pick up a guitar and sing instead. It's healthy. It's better.

What helps you?