Op/Ed: It Won’t Be Pretty, It Doesn’t Have To Be.

Origin stories are built on a foundation made of trials and tribulations. When it rains, it pours and it’s been pouring recently. Not to be confused with “making it rain”, we either have or we will experience “when it all falls apart”- the car, the hot water heater, the other car, the medical bill. As unwitting parts of this hyper-connected world where anyone has a platform to say anything (yet only certain voices are elevated), it’s easy to fall into the “true grit, that’s it” vibe. An algorithm based on a capitalist, white-surpremacy, patriarchy will never elevate the voices that contradict it the way that it will those that don’t. As a result, the ugliness of grief gets lost- sent to the margins where it eventually disappears.

Any story worth hearing, and story that evokes feelings, notably includes the “hard part”. We indulge in TV dramas and news media that capitalizes on our fears, not the “beige” and boring. So how can we tilt the inevitability of suffering to rewrite our stories through the eyes of bravery? How do we grapple with the loss of “who we were before” without succumbing to the numbness that lies on the other side of the initial response?

I write at length about unfolding of our experience of “becoming” because it’s something that I personally struggle with to often to see “success”. I am frozen in time in the body that I inhabit- simultaneously eager to push on and tethered by what’s been. I know this struggle is not uniquely mine, so I write about it to hopefully create space for any of you folks who feel the same.

Scale and scope of “falling apart” is personal and, fortunately, the Buddha speaks to the inevitability of circumstances ripe for the fall being an inevitability of the human condition. Life is suffering, it’s a perpetual shedding, unfolding, awakening, becoming. On one side, there is so much life to greet, and on the other, there’s versions of ourselves that we have loved and lost by no fault of our own. And it’s a hard conversation to engage because the gloomy-negativity loves company, particularly by cannibalising it’s own human form.

And so, I continue to lean into “por que no las dos”- both can exist, the unexpected rattling of grief as we lose these versions of us and the eventual comfort and control that settles in once we do meet and get to know that which we eventually become. Who is this person? What are their new strengths? What does “overcoming” add to this person’s outlook? How, then, do these experiences build up an armor to dress us as we continue on our finite life journies?

There’s a classic episode of Spongebob in which Mr. Krabs molts his shell and runs around Bikini Bottom for a period of time as a squishy blob as his new shell takes shape. The poignant example of what it feels like to feel overexposed, easily defensive, sensitive to what would otherwise feel dull has carried me through each new battle that’s greeted versions of myself that I’d formerly loved.

We can (and should) always have space for grace and self-expression, to look directly at our overexposed, naked form to meet this newer version with just a bit more love. The dead look in your eyes, the battle wounds (both physical and emotional) fresh and raw, and the changes in your posture are all sights to behold. Because origin stories are build on being beat down, you take your rest, you mend your wounds and you return to you. Because, at the end of the day, you’re the only one who can and will embrace yourself and get yourself back up and going.

Heavy shit, we process in our own ways, but this sort of mind map has been hugely helpful for me in times when things get tough- especially when I hear how nasty my inner chatter gets.