Photography by Lori K. Tate, digitally enhanced by Graydon Tate
If I hadn’t picked “forward” as my word for 2020, I would have probably gone with “resiliency.” Last year strengthened my resiliency skills so much that I’m sure I could win gold if it’s ever an event in the Olympics.
While I can thankfully say that I haven’t experienced a full-on tragedy in my life (knock on every piece of wood you can find), I have made it through some tough things, anorexia and infertility being two of them. In the throes of those situations, life was difficult. I remember one Christmas Eve when John and I had to sneak out of the service to the church parlor so he could give me an infertility shot at the correct time. (If anyone reading this is going through infertility treatment, please know you are in my heart because I know you are in hell.)
With a lot of work and support, I made it through those things, and with every step I’m making it through each day without my mom physically being here (five months next week). Slowly but surely, I’m building a new normal with my family (my dad included), and the days when everything clicks like Legos are as yummy as ice cream. They aren’t glamorous by any means, and that’s why they’re so great. They’re just normal, even plain.
As a twenty-something I would have scoffed at enjoying grocery shopping and finding a good coupon. Now I almost jump up and down when the cashier at Harris Teeter tells me that I’ve saved more than $40 with my VIC card. This is living, and I love it because when you can’t have normal, you crave it more than anything.
Lately so many of my friends have had normalcy ripped from them. Whether it’s a sick parent or sibling, marital challenges, a job move, or personal illness, life as they knew it is gone — at least for a while. Each day they piece together new schedules based on what is asked and needed of them. They do the best they can as they pine for the time when things were predictable and a little mundane.
While I don’t want to be the Pollyanna everyone wants to punch, I want my friends to know that when they get through whatever it is they’re going through, they’ll be better human beings. Maybe not happy ones, but better, and they will be more prepared for the next hurdle.
Our culture is obsessed with happiness and happy endings. It might seem strange hearing that from me because I’ve built a blog on finding goodness (and I’m obsessed with rom com movies), but goodness and happiness aren’t the same things. You can be happy because of goodness, and being good can make you happy, but they’re not interchangeable.
When I look at younger generations, as well as my own (very much including me), I worry that our obsession with happiness is making us less resilient. Are we so scared of hardship that we pursue happiness at all costs? Are we so frightened of not being happy that we make bad choices that eventually lead us to being just that? If things were wonderful all the time, we wouldn’t know how to appreciate the Lego and ice cream days.
In addition to manners (which aren’t just for children by the way), I’m trying to drill resiliency into my kids. If something doesn’t go their way, I want them to be able to deal with it without being destroyed. If they’re not happy, I want them to realize that it’s okay not to be happy and keep coasting along.
It’s a hard lesson to teach because the world keeps telling us that being happy is the only way to be. Happiness is indeed a wonderful thing, but it doesn’t teach us all we need to know to get through life. That’s where resiliency kicks in.