The Best Laid Plans
Friends!
I am back!
Time flies when you are having fun, doesn't it? Last week went by incredibly fast. We enjoyed so many wonderful experiences celebrating the love of Kevin and Brianne and meaningful togetherness with people we love in both new and familiar places. Very grateful.
I give myself a B- on my resting abilities. We had so many activities planned that I actually didn't have a ton of time for work. So, at some level, rest from work was achieved. Stillness – less so. I must do better in the future, and I will commit to doing so.
And then, as we began our journey home, we were thrown a major curveball, which is what preoccupies my mind now. While we were gone, little Plato, our 12-year-old Maltipoo dog, had a serious health challenge, which culminated in us saying goodbye to him on Monday. It was incredibly sad on many levels. We are grateful for all that he brought to our family and will forever cherish our fond memories of him. We named him Plato because he seemed to be such a little guy (5 lbs) with really big ideas!
So, while trying to rest, trying to turn off, and trying to enjoy life, we were also dealing with an emergency, which ultimately ended in the most difficult decision to end his life.
When it comes to planning I often remind people of this question:
How do you make God laugh?
Tell him your detailed plans for the future.
So, needless to say, this experience had me reflecting on the vast emotional distance we travel through life. Our emotional lives can change rapidly –sometimes within hours or even from one moment to the next. A phone call, email, text message, or exchange of words has the power to flip your world upside down.
They say that life is a rollercoaster and boy, can it be. In the midst of your most joyous excitement for what life currently offers, it can feel like you are on the top of a mountain, blissfully unaware that the next step you take will make you fall rapidly. From delight to despair.
This past week, we were on a high spending time with people we love in beautiful settings when we got the call. The message we received was not part of our plan nor even on our radar as a possibility.
I lost my sister when I was 13. So, I have reflected both alone and with the help of others quite a bit around the emotional constitution of loss. Needless to say, this is obviously a very difficult landscape to navigate. And there are no one-size-fits-all user manuals for how to deal with it. It depends on who we are and what has happened to us prior. I wrote more about these types of challenges in Radical Acceptance as well as The Power of Nobody.
What I have come to embrace is that there is beauty, richness, and appreciation in the midst of sorrow. It can help bring out the best in humans. It can help soften our harder edges and it can make us more vulnerable, humble, and accepting. All qualities that I think the world would be better off for if they were more commonly displayed in our public discourse.
The incredible human paradox of life is that the things we learn the most from are from the experiences we desire the least. I have come to peace with and agree with the Rolling Stones' notion that "you can't always get what you want" and that part of life is to navigate the rough waters and somehow figuring out how to find beauty and meaning in the midst of very challenging circumstances.
Every day when I wake up, every time I open the door to our home, I miss those little footsteps filled with anticipation and his own very special and affectionate way of saying hello. I am sad. I miss my Plato. But I am also happy and grateful for living the kind of life where we could take care of and appreciate something as gratifying as having yet another creature to love.
Practicing, embracing, and enjoying the tension between two opposite emotions is not easy. But it has the benefit of being real. And I think we all would do better if we resisted wanting only the gain without the pain or the light without the darkness. It always ends in disappointment or despair and by preparing for bad while hoping for good we might live a more emotionally stable life.
I will end with the master of processing loss. I find this quote beautiful and so humanly true.
PS. No links this week. Didn't read as much as usually while away, but I promise I will send some next Sunday!
