family

Taking the Good With the Bad

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In an almost serendipitous fashion, life has a way of being a study of contrasts. You can be deep in an experience of heaviness, feeling the weight of the world upon you, suffocating and life-sucking, only to be plucked back up into joy and life and love. These moments are particularly sweet when marked against the bitter.

I’m no stranger to divorce. My parents’, firstly, with all its implications and the way it nudged my life and changed it forever. My parents were amiable and decent, but it’s impossible to take things that were bound together apart without damage. I’ve watched members of my family walk through it and heard them express the wish that it could be different, despite the fact that I’ve seen the reasons why, and they were valid. There usually is a good reason, though it sometimes takes time to see where the responsibility lies from the outside. Sometimes you are never quite sure. Sometimes it’s mutual selfishness. I wish it wasn’t this way, and that people were always as good as they should be and that children were always put first. But, it’s not, and it’s painful to watch, even from a distance.

Walking from this experience made the good news we received a few days ago particularly sweet and poignant. We have two beloved family members that intimately know the pain of betrayal that leads to divorce and have walked it under some of the most extreme circumstances I’ve ever witnessed with grace and dignity, not to mention a depth of character that is rare indeed. I got the most amazing text letting me know that their friendship and mutual support had become something more, and they were engaged. They are both exactly what the other has been missing and, despite what I expect will continue to be complicated, I have no doubt that they will build something lasting and beautiful. This news was very much akin to sunlight breaking over a very cloudy sky to me.

I think it’s easy to see events like this, especially in such a dramatic fashion, without realizing that they are poignant moments frozen in time that were actually built from the everyday, mundane moments of life. I’ve lived moments like this. We all have. Sometimes, I’ve succumbed to less-than-admirable motives, and people I love have suffered. Mostly, though, my marriage has grown into the opposite, with longevity and love the result of two partners that have chosen to look beyond ourselves (at least I like to think so.) The truth is probably a slow realization of the former that gave us both the fortitude to choose the harder but better way. While people rarely weigh the thousands of tiny actions that make up life, the fact is that these are the make-or-break things that happen to us, as normal as they appear. And, marriage has a way of making it impossible to ignore when you haven’t lain it all on the table.

A few years ago – five, probably – we were in the darkest part of our marriage. There was so much hurt and disappointment and blame, and neither of us were doing well at managing it with kindness and love, really. I came across a Ted Talk that sunk deep into my soul and shaped how I began to look at relationship. I’ve taught classes on the concepts of the bridge between the worlds and the relational space since and continue to recommend this talk it to couples I know.

I sincerely hope that all my readers are in a good place in their lives, but having lived it myself and seen others go through it as well, I’m not that naive. Either way, the 20 minutes it will take to watch this are well worth the time. I hope your week has not been cloudy, but for those that know the feeling all too well, maybe this can be your own sunshine breaking over the gloom. “The adventure of life is not about discovering new landscapes. The adventure of life is seeing the old ones with new eyes.” Choose love. I’ve found it to be so worth the price.

 

I Hope I Live Like I Am Dying

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I just could not get my thoughts together today. I have so much on my mind, and I was struggling to do it justice. I had almost a whole post written this morning, and it flat refused to coalesce. It’s still sitting there. I spent a lot of time this week really diving into relationships and exploring in my head what they mean to me. This isn’t the first time I’ve thought on this topic, but I was really chewing on what I want it to look like when I pass away. I know. That’s maybe morbid, especially considering the fact that I’m just settling into midlife at 41. But, you know, midlife crisis and all that.

I have a couple different groups of good friends that I spend a good amount of time with socially. I had two different girl’s nights close together last summer, and my 11-year-old asked who I was going out with. When I answered, “My friends,” his reply was, “Which ones? You have a ton.” I sat in that space for a minute just feeling so much gratitude for that statement. This hasn’t always been the case, but my life over the last 10 or so years has developed such a richness in this area.

This week was a good one for this to pop up. My husband spent some time helping take care of the belongings of a man from church that passed away and really had very few connections. He’s virtually a stranger to my very friendly husband, and it really struck him how sad it would be to leave this world without a full life in your wake. I spent last weekend away with some girlfriends, had a play date today with another friend and her girls and spent numerous hours connecting with a high school friend (really, more of a brother) around his writing. It isn’t necessarily common for me to engage so much in such a short amount of time, but, man, it was so good! These people and many more like them deeply enrich my life. I feel blessed beyond measure that they choose to share their journeys with me. They are all so different, and we have different things in common, but that fact is really one of the things that makes it all so meaningful to me.

So, when I die, what do I hope? I hope, first and foremost, that my kids will come together in love without drama or hard feelings or hatred. I know that can be such a hard one for families, and I hope to have raised my kids to be kind, loving and forgiving people that overlook small slights in favor of the bigger picture. I hope that they recognize how hard their father and I have worked to launch them well and carry the tools we gave them into their own successful and flourishing families. I hope they learn by example what we have fought so hard for.

I hope that I am widely missed. I’m not under the illusion that every person who crosses my path will be awestruck and heartbroken, but I hope that my character shines through and that the majority of people who met me remember me as a good person who had integrity, kindness and love.

I hope that my friends grieve me deeply. (I’m just assuming that my husband will go first. He’s 5 years older, and women live longer.) I hope that I am there for them when they need me and they know that I tried to show up as my best for the relationships that meant the most to me. I hope that I hold the confidences they trust me with as a sacred honor and never betray that. I can be careless and selfish and imperfect, but I hope that my actions reflect the fact that my love for them was stronger than that, and I truly tried to give them as much as they brought me.

I hope that even my acquaintances remember me as generous – someone who would take some time for you if I could and offer a skill or a hand or an answered question for something I had knowledge of. I hope they see me as impeccably honest.

I’m not all these things today, I’m most sure. But, I sincerely want the world, even if it’s just the small part I travel in, to feel it as a loss when I’m no longer here. I want my life to be rich and full and meaningful and to leave a hole where I once stood because I didn’t just breathe, I LIVED. Out loud. Fully. Completely. Deeply. Without apology. But, with love. Above all, with love. This is what I want to be when I grow up, and luckily, I have a good 40 more years to get there. It might be just enough time, I think. I hope.