Resilience

Holding a hard job along with many civic roles and parenting responsibilities is always a juggling act.  The pandemic has added a degree of difficulty.  Snow earlier this month was yet another layer of complexity.  Along the way, I'm wired to respond by trying to control what I can control, which means quickly determining how to flex my schedule to accommodate all of the tasks and all of the limitations.  But very often the wheels fall off, because there are too many tasks and too many limitations to restore order to my day.  My default when that happens is to either try even harder or else spiral in despondency.  I'm learning, ever so slowly and in a two steps forward and then two steps back manner, that a better way is to accept and even lean into the chaos, to be ok with not knowing and doing and just take things one at a time without being able to dictate what the next seven things are.

This is how resilience works, is that a person or a group or a location gains adaptability in response to being tested and stretched.  Which is to say that there is no resilience without those tests and that stretching.  And while we needn't go looking for trouble, nor should we avoid discomfort, for that is where growth lies.

I must note that there is a form of privilege that we must acknowledge if we are able to be in a place to bear hardship and to become more adaptable from bearing it.  It has been heartbreaking for me to come alongside friends who endured unimaginable traumas in childhood and watch them navigate the world as adults.  On the one hand, they are among the most resilient people I know, for what they survived has steeled them for anything the world can possible throw at them.  And yet on the other hand, what is tragic about suffering so badly so young is that so much stability and habit and routine is required well into adulthood in order to feel safe and anchored.  

Life is hard, and sometimes it is unspeakably hard.  Let's help each other to be more resilient, and let's do it together.  And let's be mindful that this is easier for some than for others, and practice patience and grace, extending it both to others as well as ourselves.