Last Sunday, we were celebrating our 6th anniversary in black clothing, enjoying a “small” family gathering in my parents’ backyard (with three older brothers who each have a wife and two kids it’s hard to consider us a “small” family). I was so grateful to have one day to pause the cleaning of our apartment and last-minute storage packing, and emotionally preparing for my grandmother’s wake the next evening and subsequent burial on Tuesday morning.
The hardest Mass I’ve ever had to play and sing for was my Babcia’s funeral Mass. Cody knew it would be, but he chose to sit only a few feet away from me, close enough that I could squeeze his hand when I wasn’t playing.
By Wednesday, I was pretty spent. By Thursday, my sore throat was turning into a stuffy nose, and by Friday, I had lost my voice. It was my fault, really. I had stopped taking vitamins and put my body through a lot of stress (though, all things considered, the stressors had piled up and all that was left was to endure them. I told myself that the rest would come when I arrived in Costa Rica. The time crunch for a Saturday morning flight demands a lot, but add in the time to grieve the matriarch of my family and whew, that’s a tall order.
So it’s a good thing I’m tall.
Anyway. I don’t mean for this to be a list of grievances or complaints or “Why me?”s. All things considered, the last couple weeks have been so ripe with blessings. I’ve really felt my family come together. I’ve felt the support of my husband. We chose to postpone our flight from Tuesday to Saturday (I can’t even imagine flying out on a morning when everyone else was going to be at my grandma’s gravesite), and I was able to hug so many people I love (that I wouldn’t have had an opportunity to see had my grandma not passed).
I’m finally learning and grounding myself in the truth that my emotions and the circumstances that create those emotions (let me put this in a way that our friend Matt said on Friday) “aren’t good or bad – they just are.” And it’s so true.
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster. And treat those two imposters the same…
“If” by Richard Kipling
By the way – this truth comes as a result of A LOT of therapy, reading, and investment in relationships that have been such a solid support and foundation for me. I did NOT have this perspective two years ago. I felt captive to my emotions, and it wasn’t until I learned about cognitive distortions and how to reframe my thinking that I could find my way out. If this is you and you don’t have a therapist yet, what are you waiting for, boo!?
I think the same truth, and approach to the reality that is relationships, goes with marriage. Cody and I have been through some lowwww lows this last year, but our hands somehow still found their way to each other. And, this last weekend, we’ve held hands as we marvel at this life we’re stepping into: it has been a dream for so long that we would live abroad, within nature, by the ocean and mountains, and boom. We’re here. Tamarindo, Guanacaste, Costa Rica. For the next year, we’ll get to explore and wander and wonder and fall more in love with life and each other. And whether we’re experiencing conflict, or loss, or uncertainty, or the bliss of feeling alive, we’ll ride the waves together, treat them all the same, and find peace within ourselves and each other.
Amen.