"Remember that if it’s heavy and ill-fitting, if it’s a burden, you don’t need to hold it." Sarah Bessey
This has been yet another hard year and as Christmas (my favorite holiday) comes around, I've had a lot of anxiety. To be honest, this entire year I've had a lot of anxiety. It took me a while to realize that was what was gnawing at me, but since I have it's been a strange relief. In realizing and recognizing the places of pain in my life, I have found so much more freedom and peace in sitting with those things, in tension with desiring hope for the future. I don't have a ton of hope right now, and it seems every time I've gotten it something else tries to squash it. Instead, I've noticed the simple pleasures that can tend to get overshadowed by the hard things.
The above quote (and blog) from Sarah Bessey spoke to me. Not all of it resonated in a deeply felt way, but more in a weary nod of agreement from the heart. I've learned a lot about grief in ways I wasn't expecting to; in ways I didn't know I still needed to. Of course in the throes of pain and immediately after, you think you've known enough of it. In that, I've learned a thing or two about resilience, too.
Resilience isn't necessarily the springing back up from a blow with enthusiasm that we may think of it as. It's more of a rolling on your side, catching your breath, processing what happened as best as your brain will let you, and slowly steadying yourself into an upright position – in stages. Grief and pain can be slow. I was so tired from grief and pain in the previous year, I didn't want to do it again this time. I was so deeply angry for being forced back down into the hurt, and I didn't want to deal with it, so I laid there for a while – as Brene Brown puts it in her book, Rising Strong, I was "facedown in the arena." It wasn't until maybe August I realized and fully admitted to myself that I was in grief again. And November revealed to me that I had grief yet to come from my first relationship.
What's surprising is that I thought this year was the lowest I've ever felt, until I got wind of some startling news: my first love is marrying someone else. That's the lowest I've felt in nearly a decade; my heart broke all over again. It scared me, the depth of isolation I felt. Still even writing this, thinking about that makes my eyes well up with tears.
And we first connected at Christmas time, three years ago, spent one together as a couple. Then by the following holiday season I was falling in love again, which I thought was maybe the redemptive plan to follow the long, drawn-out heartache. I thought I'd found what must be better for me. But as fast as it started and high as it rose, it more quickly and ruthlessly broke my newly healed heart.
I learned so much in this past year about pain that I know will help the next time I get knocked off my feet. I'm certainly no longer naive enough to think I'll be ready, if anything I know you never are, but I know that even in the very lowest I can hang on. That's resilience. It's by no means a strength of my own, but the things curiosity and others have taught me. Those who showed up in the pain and let me sob on them, or repeat my pain in words so worn out. Those people saved me. Curiosity about how our consciousness is a blend of mind and heart that can be experienced but also managed; learning that the darkest of dark feelings are real, but not true. Not everyone is so lucky – and yes, it seems like luck. Perhaps some want to call it grace, which if it suits you, by all means. To me, it seems like luck that when I felt like life is possibly too painful to endure, I found it in myself to grapple for hope in spite of myself – not because I have some virtuous ability others aren't as fortunate to have, surely not because my faith is strong.
It was actually knowledge that helped me. I write this with a dual purpose: first, to give voice and validation to others experiencing a hard time or a hard year. The second is to tell them it's possible to get through the low moment, even when it doesn't feel like it. One of the best things I've heard in a long time is your feelings are real but they aren't true. When life feels like it's too much to handle, it is right now but it won't always be. Sometimes that's as close as we can come to having hope, and that's okay, because it's enough to actually get us to tomorrow.
A practical thing I learned this year was to notice what I'm feeling (not to be confused with reacting or acting out of emotion), and not surprisingly I noticed my anxiety piquing as Christmas started to come around this year. Which I suppose is the final, bonus message: painful spots might still hurt even after you think they're done hurting, but it's okay. Getting comfortable with the idea that there is pain in life is important, but with a sense of compassion for yourself (not suck-it-up-ism!).
So as I approach Christmas, I hold the tension of weary hope for better love and renewed joy in the future, with feeling anxious about embracing the pain that will inevitably hook me in the next few weeks. Within that, I will also take Sarah's words of wisdom to heart, and I hope you will, too.
