Climbing Out, One Step at a Time

I’m angry. I’m angry that I went through things that changed me this deeply. I’m angry that years later, something can happen and suddenly I’m right back there again. I’m angry that I can be sitting in a meeting, looking completely normal, while a picture of my son as a six-week-old baby in a hospital bed flashes through my mind. I’m angry that I spent years being the person who had to know everything, remember everything, advocate, protect, prepare and hold it together. I’m angry that some part of me still believes that if I am not there, something terrible could happen. I’m angry that people can look at me and not understand any of this. That sometimes what I need is compassion, and instead I feel like I have to explain why something hurt me so much in the first place. And maybe more than anything, I’m angry that I’m still dealing with it. I want to be better. I want these things to stay in the past where they belong. I don’t want to wake up at 5 a.m. in a panic or lose a few seconds...

I’ve been thinking a lot about how hard it can be to do what you believe is right. People talk about “doing the right thing” like it always comes with some immediate sense of peace, like you make the kind choice, the compassionate choice, the thoughtful choice, and then you walk away feeling good about yourself. Sometimes that just isn’t how it works. Sometimes doing what you believe is right makes your life harder. Recently, I found myself in a situation where someone was clearly having a difficult moment. I could have been annoyed, cold, or simply decided that their emotions weren’t my problem. Instead, I chose grace, and somehow that became the harder choice. Not everyone understood it. Some people thought I should have handled things differently, been tougher, more removed, or less concerned with what the other person might have been carrying. But I kept coming back to the same thing: I don’t want to become someone who responds to another person’s hard moment by making it harder. T...