Friday, December 22, 2017

Resiliency keeps coming up in conversations across many sectors of my life. It's begun to feel like a conversation that I'm having with God rather than any one person. I'm just enough of a mystic to stop and look up when that feeling creeps in. See, this season of life was supposed to be something else. I wanted to focus on community, but it has been cold and lonely. I feel as though I'm moving backward in the lessons that I wanted to learn. I feel less capable than ever and like something inside of me is damaged.

At the same time, I have had several days during which I have had to stop and note to myself, "I am surprisingly happy." I've whispered it so as not to blow the dandelion head of this secret into oblivion. I often feel something like guilt sidle up to my happiness. We all know that it is possible to be happy even when everything is not perfect, but when are things "good enough", "balanced enough", or "successful enough" to give ourselves permission to be content? For myself, the question has always been "how do I know that I am doing enough so that I can trust that it will work out?"

I don't really know the answer to that; but something I have begun to observe in myself even in difficulty is that I know how to be both happy and not happy at the same time. I just noticed it this week. Hiding in the corners of my unhappy self is happiness. I didn't will it to be there. I didn't meditate on all that there is still to be thankful for even though things have gone down "Unexpected Blvd".

I am truly surprised to find that I am both happy and unhappy. I am dissatisfied but not empty. This is not what I hoped for. I am hurt and disappointed. But I am nothing if not flexible. These years have taught whatever muscle or reflex is in charge of hope to be nimble.  It feels a little like coming out of the darkness. I wonder if this paradox of being both happy and not is what resiliency is made of.

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