It happens to all of us. Maybe we have our whole story resting on a certain place we want to go to school, or a city where we want to live, or the idea that we’ll write a book, or get married, or have kids. What do we do when it doesn’t work out? What do we do when we don’t get what we thought we wanted? We can either choose to feel like it’s the end of the world, or we can choose to decide it’s the beginning.That's from Packing Light: Thoughts on Living Life with Less Baggage, a memoir by Allison Vesterfelt.
My sister-in-law calls it when life throws you something out of left field, that thing you weren’t expecting. That wasn’t even on your radar. The thing that suddenly puts your whole life in perspective. That you didn’t prepare for, because how could you?
Because you couldn’t even imagine it.
But it isn’t a question of whether it will happen; it’s a question of when. We know how to prepare for natural disasters, but personal ones? I think maybe we protect ourselves by not being able to imagine some of the dark places we can go.
And maybe it’s okay if we’re unprepared.
Because when things don’t go the way you planned, that’s when you really grow up. That first curve ball knocks you off your pedestal of expectations.
Can you bend, but not break? When you buckle to your knees can you still manage to move forward? I think of Mary Oliver’s poem, “The Summer Day,” and her question, “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
One of the wonderful things about reading Maya Angelou, who died this week, is that she had so many of life’s curve balls thrown at her, and yet she both survived and thrived, and she took on so many roles in her long life: author, mother, artist, dancer, activist, teacher. She gave the commencement speech when I graduated from college, and I remember her reciting “Still I Rise.” I had already read many of her books, but I didn't know her poetry.
I’d had a couple curve balls thrown at me by then. I’ve had a lot more thrown at me since.
And while I’m not dealing with anything in particular now—it’s some of my friends who are reeling from what life has thrown at them—I’m going to go listen again. Add a Comment