Suffering is a fact of life. In one way or another, life WILL slap you in the face. Some will get slapped harder than others, but it will happen. To all of us. I know it’s easy to look on social media and think everyone else’s life looks dreamy or perfect … that doesn’t make it true. If you haven’t heard it yet, you are hearing it now – social media is a highlight reel, a curated gallery of what people want you to see, not necessarily what actually is.
And many times for good reason.
I know for me, I hate putting my stuff out there. I don’t want to sit and whine about my life or how hard my day was to a bunch of people who will most likely read into it wrong, judge me, or who just had a really sucky day of their own and don’t have the bandwidth to hear about mine. So I guess I always find it funny when we get all bent out of shape about the superficial-ness of social media. I get it, it can get so annoying, but if we were really honest with ourselves, we all are guilty of it.
Maybe that’s why having a blog has felt a little different. If you’re here, you want to be. I don’t feel so bad going deeper into the hard stuff, because I feel a little less like I’m forcing it on you.
These past few months have been full of grief. Yes, Cisco survived and has recovered way better than expected, but there are quite a few things that just aren’t the same. And that HURTS. When I really allow myself to look that fact full in the face, I fall apart. It’s been some time since I’ve allowed myself to, honestly. But it’s always there, reminders throughout every day that try to suck me down into what we’ve lost.
Our lives weren’t perfect. Our marriage wasn’t perfect. We definitely had our share of stress, issues, and kids giving us gray hairs.
But things were good.
And it’s not that things aren’t good now. There is so much good and every month there is progress. But there are some things that are just very different. And let me tell you, that is a difficult thing to wrap your head around when something like this happens so suddenly. You find yourself in this weird tandem of feeling so grateful – that he’s alive, that he’s not a vegetable, that he is able to walk and talk and remembers who you are – those suddenly become very real things to be thankful for!
And then there’s the other side, where the grief of what’s been lost will hit you out of nowhere, you remember what was and may never be again, and it feels like ice cold water being poured over your soul. I don’t know why, but that’s what it feels like.
Grief.
I am familiar with this feeling, I experienced it so much after the fire. You’re just trucking along, folding laundry and minding your own business and suddenly it’s like your body and mind remembers. And you’re instantly sucked down into shock and the sadness of it all. If you know grief you know exactly what I’m talking about.
Goodness and grief. Sadness and joy. I don’t know how they go together, but they do. We recently watched Inside Out again and I honestly love the portrayal of this dichotomy, because it really is so accurate. And beautiful, when we don’t fight against it and allow it to be that way. We have to lean into both, which can be difficult when you’re in the thick of it. But I know, from experience, God always, always brings so much beauty, goodness and joy, along with the pain.
