i wept for sorrow's sake..

{joy and sorrow are inseparable…

together they come and when one sits alone with you,

remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.}

–Kahlil Gibran

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I believe that people are naturally ‘yes’ or ‘no’ people.

That they are naturally ‘optimists’ or ‘pessimists’.

Not that this limits their ability to display or act out of the opposing characteristics,

just that they have a natural disposition towards one.

I consider myself an optimistic realist.

I see the realities or limitations of a situation,

I know that humanity is really, really messy.

But I still hope-dream-believe in the potential.

In the growth, in the change, in the movement.

I have always had a joyful spirit.

It’s easy for me to be hopeful in bleak places,

thankful despite adversity.

To look at someone (or myself) and think,

“There is hope for you yet.”

My grandpa (he’s a sweet man) says that “I was born a shining star”.

That “darkness can’t touch me because it doesn’t even faze me”.

(I think that’s being a bit generous, but I appreciate his belief in me).

He also often reminds me that my Irish blood will always find a way to remind me of sorrow.

That sorrow is an important part to life,

and when it comes, to feel it deeply.

Yesterday as I was driving home,

Sorrow fell over me like a heavy, wool blanket.

I just started weeping.

Weeping is different than crying.

Weeping comes from a place deep inside your soul where there are no words.

I pulled off the highway and just sat there and wept,

the sun beating down on me through my window.

I wept for the loss of love.

I wept for friends I hardly know,

who are about to know the deepest sorrow.

That I can’t tell you when it’s going to get better,

but I can tell you it will be far worse than you could ever imagine.

I wept for my best of 22 years and her little girls.

I wept for how easy it is to dissolve a marriage,

and yet how hard it remains.

Every story unfolds differently,

But I know one thing,

No matter how it happens (best or worst case scenario),

divorce is the saddest, ugliest thing.

I wept for my own divorce.

It’s not a secret, it’s a tragedy.

I wept for the sake of all lost love,

loves not realized or chased after.

I wept for the sake of fears that imprison people from trying love again.

I wept for the sake of love forgotten.

Fathers, daughters, mothers, sons, lovers, friends.

I wept for sorrow’s sake.

Until the heat of the sun on my skin cooled from the settling in of dusk.

As I drove the rest of the way home,

I thought about the ways you can tell it’s getting better.

(because it’s getting better all the time).

That small things like smiling again in photographs,

or recognizing that the hard days & nights now,

are less hard then the ones last week, or last month, or 6 months ago.

That although there will always be scars, the heart heals.

That things like intentional counseling and making art and the love of good people,

helps make your scars trustworthy.

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{Sorrow comes in great waves… but rolls over us,

and though it may almost smother us, it leaves us.

And we know that if it is strong, we are stronger,

inasmuch as it passes and we remain.}

-Henry James