Life goes on…
Please note that if you are encountering thoughts of suicide or despair so deep that you can’t climb out, this blog is not for you. If you need professional help, please reach out to someone. In Canada, the suicide hotline is available by text or calling at 988. Please don’t give up.
This past year has been a tough one in our family. I’ve heard from others that they too, have dealt with a number of struggles throughout 2024. Recently my mother felt like the rug had been pulled out from under her and she said to me, well life goes on. It does. Whether we want to live in it or not, the world continues. I think everyone has occasions when they just wished life would pause for a few minutes - long enough to catch a breath, cry a little, yell a little or stomp around a bit. In the last few months, I’ve been told of deaths in families, the ending of relationships, loss of jobs, having to put a beloved pet down, and around the world we see strife, war, and a rise of hatred. Hatred based on religion, ethnicity, immigration, health, and who you love.
There are so many feelings that can come from awful events like I’ve listed above. They can be everything from sadness to apathy to anger to grief. I think they’re all important. My immediate emotion these days when something goes wrong is grief and sadness. I haven’t been jumping to anger and I think anger can sometimes be productive. I think anger can spur you to make a change. It can make you speak up. It can give you the impetus to stand up and say when something is wrong. I think anger can also be the catalyst for violence. It seems like everything can be misused if we’re not careful. And that’s how my mind has been working recently. I’ll admit I’ve really questioned the outcome of the U.S. election. I try to avoid writing about politics. I think it’s a battle that should not happen on social media so I bring it up now only to say it’s one of those events that really made me question the world in which I live. I think the question is a good one. How can I bring something positive to the world? I’m not sure of the answer but I think it’s important to consider.
Okay, so that’s a global event. How about personal events? How about the ones that are within reach but outside of oneself? Those are tough for someone like me. I had a friend recently point out that too much empathy and carrying of someone else’s weight can drag a person down. She said it’s not healthy and she didn’t just mean emotionally, she meant physically. She has a friend who ended up in hospital with heart problems from all that she was carrying around. When I think of all that people around me are going through I can’t help but feel for them. However, my friend is correct and the responses are not mine to make. And what I’ve talked about so far are the negative events that happen.
What about the positives? Because there are lots of those events as well. My perfect trip to Ireland is a great example. Last weekend I went to a bucket list concert (Bruce Springsteen) with a friend. It was incredible. Daily I encounter moments with team members that make me smile or laugh. All of the winning home games that I attended for my football team this past season. A very good friend winning a job promotion.
Each of those events, the good and the bad, are like fireworks. They explode and light up the sky. Some trickle down and are out quickly. Others, set off cascading fireworks and light up the sky for minutes at a time. Some are loud with great booms and others are muted, fading out rapidly.
At the end of a fireworks display, we pack up our chairs and blankets, gather everyone together and head back to our cars. We may be excited, chattering about our favourite explosion. We may be quiet, letting the ringing in our ears subside. Not too long after the last firework has faded away are we thinking about something else? Perhaps it’s the traffic on the drive home; it’s the to do list that didn’t get finished; maybe it’s school and work the next day with lunches to be made.
As I think about my mom’s statement that life goes on, it seems that it does so very quickly after the good events. I feel like those are the events I want to hold on to more tightly. I want to ring every ounce of joy out of them. I want to feel the excitement, the rushing pulse as long as I can. Last weekend, after the concert and in my car heading home my mind was thinking about Sunday morning. I would be late pulling into the driveway and I knew I had to be up to get work done around the yard. I had quite a long list of cleaning up that I wanted to accomplish. But what I really wanted was to revel in the feeling of a packed arena screaming out Bruce’s lyrics, cheering and dancing for three hours.
I don’t know why but it seems a little harder to hold onto the excitement than it does the bad. Maybe it’s because the bad seems to have a stronger impact on our lives. Certainly some events will be impacting a person much longer than a concert. Losing a job will take some time to overcome. A speeding ticket is meant to slow you down, but it isn’t meant to stop you, is it? How can we take the tragic or terrible events and move on?
Because move on, we must. On Friday morning I awoke with a sense of panic. It was a tough week. I struggled mentally and on Friday morning instead of feeling relief that the work week was almost over, I was still in the midst of the panic. I stepped onto my kitchen porch to breath in the air and give thanks for another morning (something I’ve been trying to do every day since I returned from Ireland). The view that greeted me was so beautiful and I realized that while I’d spent the week feeling buried, the world continued to turn. Life still has it’s gorgeous sunrises and sunsets. People are still good. Friends still support.
Life goes on. It goes on after something awful happens and it goes on after you’ve experienced something amazing. As I sit here writing this blog, it occurs to me that this life I get to live is truly a gift. The challenges are as important as the joys. There is so much I don’t understand and yet I still get to experience many different events and people. Time never stops, even if we’d like to make it so that we can hold something tight or not deal with something bad. I feel like I have no answers except to pull my head out of the sand. I don’t grow if I let the negative thoughts and feelings take over. I’m going to try to remember that feeling when I looked around at a sold out arena screaming and cheering as an icon took the stage. I’m going to bring to mind that feeling I have when I laugh with my son or cheer him on. I’m going to dig deep to feel the joy I have when hanging out with my mom or my friends. I’m going to remember the laughter of girlfriends. Life does go on and I’m grateful for it.
Friday’s sunrise and sunset - this life gives us so much beauty, if only we remember to look.
Setting the porch up for pre-winter relaxing. My porch seems to pull the morning sunshine in and it’s lovely and warm enough for a cup of tea outside!
Organizing the new shed. Although a lot of work, I get a great sense of accomplishment from “putting away” a season and preparing for the next.
A snapshot from an incredible concert experience.
A new area to enjoy! A gift from my son and mom - the propane fire pit - means I have a special spot to sit out under the skies and relax, especially in autumn.