I Guess I Haven't Learned That Yet: Discovering New Ways of Living When the Old Ways Stop Working

For a long time, I wanted people to change--to be less cruel, to be decent, to be fair, to tell the truth. That would be lovely. But I'm not waiting around for that. I'm deciding who gets to enter my spaces, my heart, my mind, my living room, because I'm responsible for those places, no one else. I'm responsible to protect my mind, my heart, my family.

believe in seeking out beauty absolutely every chance we get, as an act of prayer, as an act of worship, as an act of resistance. I believe in going out of our way if it means getting to see the water or the mountains or the sky streaked with colors. I believe in attending the sunset the way some people buy fancy theater tickets.

If you think you’re too old to make a difference, you’re not. If you think you don’t have enough time left to build something really beautiful, you’re wrong. If you think your legacy-leaving window has closed, it hasn’t.

I still believe in God—in his goodness especially. In the centrality of forgiveness, confession, prayer. I believe he is present in our lives, that he offers comfort and wisdom, that the way of Christ is the best possible way to live. I still believe in religion as a meaningful way to gather and organize our lives, although I don’t believe it’s a stand-in for emotional health or self-awareness or character, and I don’t believe a devoutly religious person is necessarily any of those other important things.

Self-compassion is letting yourself off the hook, letting yourself be human and flawed and also amazing. It’s giving yourself credit for showing up instead of beating yourself up for taking so long to get there.

Another way to look at it: self-compassion and self-care are acts of obedience, stewarding well what God has given to us, loving what he loves.

What does it mean to show up as deeply myself right now? What does it mean to give my whole self to my community instead of only the parts that feel acceptable and easy?

I’m learning to choose myself instead of giving the best of myself to people and relationships and institutions. Loyalty to myself. Belonging to myself. Looking for joy just for myself. I need a disproportionate amount of care right now, and the one who is responsible for that care is me. I can’t assume that someone else will do it; it’s my responsibility to create a rhythm for my life that nurtures me, that brings me joy, that allows me to flourish, even given the weight of things I’m carrying.

And I know now that I can trust myself, that I can belong to myself, that belonging to something larger than myself is lovely but isn’t for every season. It’s a little lonelier out here, a little rockier. I’m learning to make myself a home in the wilderness, in the unbelonging itself.

Hospitality is holding space for another person to be seen and heard and loved. It’s giving someone a place to be when they’d otherwise be alone. It’s, as my friend Sibyl says, when someone leaves your home feeling better about themselves, not better about you.

If anger is active and powerful, grief and sadness are tender, vulnerable. Anger puts us back in the power position, while grief lays us bare, like letting ourselves lie down on a sidewalk, knowing we could get stepped on, crushed. Grief gives up the pretense of control.

wise friend of mine says that true spiritual maturity is nothing more—and nothing less—than consenting to reality. Hello to here—not what you wanted or longed for or lost, not what you hope for or imagine. Reality. This here. This now.

One of my goals is to be a person who is easily delighted, who can find great cause for celebration in a fig or a familiar face. If you need fireworks and perfection in order to crack a smile, you’re going to be disappointed over and over when life fails to be spectacular on command. I want to live with an extremely low bar for delight. It takes almost nothing at all—a good song, a ripe piece of fruit, a perfectly packed tote.

Maybe walking is the speed of the soul, the exact right pacing for our bodies and spirits and hearts and minds to reconnect, to dwell together again. The soul doesn’t thrive in absolute stillness because of what the body holds that needs to be worked out—that grief, that anger. But too high a rate of speed, especially over time, violates the soul, and it’s the walking that knits it back together.

Resilience is, simply put, getting back up. It’s getting back up, not just after the first fall, but the ninth and tenth and seven hundredth. Resilience is feeling your exhaustion and choosing to move forward anyway. Resilience is watching your lovingly made plans fall to dust in your hands, grieving what’s lost and making (yet another) plan. It’s being willing to lay down your expectations for what you thought your life would be, what this year would be, what this holiday season would be, and being willing to imagine another way.

you can love someone and learn from them and be deeply grateful for them for a season, and then bless their future.

I know now that I'm strong enough, brave enough, whole enough to hold it all - how it was and how it ended. What I got wrong, what I made right, who I was, who I wasn't, who I've yet to become. What I miss, what was lost, what's still unfolding. I'm not perfect or shiny or bulletproof. The story of my life is not a fairy tale. It's not a horror story. It's just a story like most stories - dark and light and beautiful and terrible and still being written.

Life will break your heart in a thousand ways, but there's still music and there's still dancing. There's still coffee and toast. There's still kissing and there are still late dinners on busy sidewalks. Twinkly lights, novels, old movies, soft blankets, black-and-white photos, French braids, salty hot french fries dipped in mayo and ketchup. We're still falling in love. We're still learning to forgive. We're still watching our kids learn and grow and stretch into their next selves. We're still watching the sun as it rises and as it sets, still watching the moon wax and wane. We're still trying, still hoping, still getting it wrong and getting it right.

It reminds me of the improv rule, "yes, and..." We want "yes, period," right? We're okay with moving forward, as long as we get to control what's coming next. But that's not how it works. No in improv, not on the water, not in life. Yes, and. Yes, and change course. Yes, into the unknown. Yes, even though everything's different. Still yes.[...] Is the world still beautiful? Still yes. Do our stories still matter? Still yes. Am I still hopeful? Still yes. Will I trust people? Will I trust God? Will I trust myself? Still yes, yes, yes.

We’re responsible to help create a world that values questions more than answers, that celebrates learning and not just knowing, that sees failure as a part of the process of success.

I’ve been seeing worried parents for decades now. Parents worry, and kids are mostly fine. Just do this one thing: Be enchanted by whatever’s currently enchanting your child.

your exhaustion and choosing to move forward anyway. Resilience is watching your lovingly made plans fall to dust in your hands, grieving what’s lost and making (yet another) plan. It’s being willing to lay down your expectations for what you thought your life would be, what this year would be, what this holiday season would be, and being

It’s easy, of course, to buzz the beach and find the sparkle on good days—days when the sun is shining and your heart is light. When it gets really dark, though, that’s when you start to understand that it’s a discipline, and you need it in the dark so much more desperately than you need it in the light. Joy and celebration are practices for the long haul.

I drive out of my way to see the beauty and chaos of the crowded beach, the umbrellas and babies and teens splashing each other and yelping, because the beach puts me in the path of joy, and I believe that work to be part of my responsibility to myself, to my community, and to the God who made it all and sustains it all. It’s a way of saying thank you. It’s a way of reflecting my love and gratitude toward the Creator, and a way of acting out my belief that “wasting” time is sometimes a deeply meaningful spiritual practice. I buzz the beach because the time we spend making memories is never wasted, because nature reminds us that we’re part of a bigger whole, and that beauty matters and so does play. I buzz the beach because I want to live out my belief that there are more important things to do in a given day than to complete our to-do lists. I buzz the beach because even on the worst days, even on the darkest days, the waves still come in and then recede, the wind still blows, the sun—that drama queen—still puts on a performance every night.

You are allowed to love tiny, daily, ordinary moments in your life. You’re allowed to feel wild joy for the simplest and smallest of reasons. You’re allowed to be unreasonably delighted by spicy pickles or a perfect apple or a joke your teen tells you. You’re allowed to be bewitched by your partner, even after all these years, to yearn to be close to him, to bury your face in his neck. You’re allowed to feel joy for almost no reason, except that you walked by the candle that your mother sent you and even when it’s not lit, just seeing it there on the hutch makes you happy. You’re allowed to hold memories in your mind and play them over and over like an old-fashioned slideshow—click, click, click.

my best, that’s who I am: a moment maker, a noticer, a person who celebrates the tiny goodnesses of our lives.

All those no’s were in the service of a bigger yes

Everything has changed and also you still have work to do and dirty dishes in the sink, and where your future used to be, now there’s a blank nothingness and you realize you have to build a new life. You have to paint the canvas of your future, because it used to be such a well-developed, very specific image and now it is blank. This is terrifying. At some point—I promise—it will be a tiny bit exciting, this blankness.

I trust more deeply in the goodness of our God than I ever have.