Welcome again,
This post is dedicated to the friends in adversity, may we have them and may we be them…
With great adversity comes the need to need to wield even greater strength… As the popular song lyrics, ‘sunny days, everybody loves them but tell me baby can you stand the rain?‘
We all go through life changing experiences whether the events leading up to them are pleasant or not. More so with grief and loss, the profound revelation of vanity in those moments make us far receptive to altering our life choices. It is in moments as this we often edit people, beliefs and practices.
Moments where we find out our true positions with people we prioritize as central to our existence or otherwise. We start to concretely value human presence, we discover new tribes or the value of the ones we have and come to understand the term support concretely. In moments where the chips are down, we start to realize what truly matters, how the things we consider strengths are only so because the equanimity has not been disturbed, we come to discover new dimensions to our existence and begin to add layers to our definition of courage, bravery, and love.
Unfortunately, your most vulnerable moment may not strike others as such. People you expect to be gentle with you because you are going through an ordeal may also be so self absorbed that they cannot notice the chaos outside of the turbulence they are also dealing with, or sometimes, they don´t even know you that well to decipher that you are in need of help, a break, or in the least a shoulder to lean on (save the tears for loved ones).
It is even more disappointing with loved ones, people you expect know you better. Then you realize that they got used to your strength, and your strength is the balance of the relationship you had with them. That the relationship you had could only work because you were at your optimal as lots of people are inept with weakness and only understand how to exploit it in favor of privilege.
Which is why when you go through the dark times with people who know how to be light bearers in darkness, it makes all the difference. It helps to have these people around but even more so to be such a person.
There is no excuse for spinelessness no matter how logical your rationality may be. There is no esteem in being a person that cannot push through barriers, to be a person without grit, who is afraid of the not-so-pretty picture, a person that cannot deal with the frail version of existence, that cannot thrive in depth. This is not a post to say courage must look the same, or that you have to be strong at all times, or help everyone just because you do not want to be seen as vain and superficial.
Rather, it is an encouragement to grow a spine, to practice doing it afraid, walking through the storm alone, asking for help where it is too difficult to do so, and where no help shows, to put one foot in front of the other, to show up for others when you have the strength to do so, to choose the more selfless way more often than not, the reroute when you have been the person that first checks out of difficulty, to make amends for all the moments of cowardice by practicing bravery first for yourself and then, for others, to appreciate all the people that stay with you in your roughest patch, to pay it forward, to prioritize these people, to not hold the people that do not in such disdain (this will be hard but you can learn to limit your expectations of them).
The one thing you cannot do is to think you are undeserving of support because spineless people walked away, or to become so resilient that you cannot even afford vulnerability, that is not strength, that is destructive self preservation as there is healing in all of us.
Lastly, it may help to remember that everyone is at a different phase in this journey called life, if you can, be Patient with them…
The reminder list is long but if you are going through a period of difficulty, I leave you with the following words:
Connoisseur of Memories 