People tend to try and forget the bad days, to move on from them as quickly and abruptly as they came. This is not a phenomenon. It’s as equally important to learn as it is to move on, and doubly detrimental to move on and not learn. But abiding in the miseries of the past for too long does nothing but put new opportunity six feet into the ground. This is why we move on. This is why we should move on.

But what about the days that just seem so expressionless? The ones that in the moment clamber at a pace that suggests they’re entirely breaking the rules of time, but in retrospect are so hollow it’s as if they lasted merely a second. These are the days that aren’t forcibly forgotten — they are barely committed to memory. They are pages containing a few meaningless scribbles, torn out and tossed aside, making room in hopes of something more consequential. Casually and necessarily. This can turn into a dangerous routine, leaving a thick spine with just a few pages dangling from it.

The lack is then felt by the good days; pressured, their memories wrung out and stretched to fill the gaps. A recipe for a life that feels thin.

This is the part where I make a carpe diem reference, pump my fist, and then buy a motorcycle.

Except it’s not.

Those “seize the day” speeches can often be as vapid as the days I spoke of just a few paragraphs ago. Loud and full of machismo but lacking any practical application. Real life doesn’t cut to the next scene with you carrying a brand new attitude, instantly turning everything you touch into gold. It’s exactly that kind of grandiose egotism that leads right back into a cycle of banality.

It’s slow and steady. It’s the small things. More importantly, it’s the real things which are often inseparable from the selfless things. It’s hard to be disappointed and for void to exist when you realize the day is not yours, but ours and theirs. The days are only empty when they become entirely about you.

It’s not always easy; the change of approach is incremental and not overnight. But the once deleted days begin to coagulate, and life fills out a little more.