Everyone Has A Mixed Bag

I follow social media. Heck I am an active participant in social media. I see the picture perfect representations of life, and I see the ones that are real and rough around the edges. The ones where people are honest about life reality and the challenges it presents. I see, and I am concerned about, the ones who have already decided this year is a shit show, will always be a shit show. Two weeks ago we looked forward with hope, and already have lost hope.

Not that there haven't been significant losses. There have and they hurt. They define moments in life we all have to face. They do not define how today goes, or tomorrow or the other 353 remaining days of the year. Those days will be a mix of joy, sorrow, laughter, growth, grief. Those days will touch all our feelings, they will ebb and flow. Feelings are meant to come and to go. We can feel multiple feelings and release them or get stuck in them.

You know me to be an optimist, to be lifted by grace and held safe by faith. You also know life has been hard, sometimes brutally hard for me. Those "hard" times have the capacity to color my life if I chose. I chose to fill my life with color. The color of hope, the color of faith. Granted it's not all rainbows and pots of gold. I struggle, I feel anxiety, I wish things didn't happen the way they did. I feel doubt and question my ability to love, to trust. I am not perfect. I make mistakes, moments where my daughter would call me 'so pretty' but without saying it ridiculously clueless. I haven't though predicted, even jokingly, that this year is destined to suck. 

Yesterday, at work, I assisted a woman selecting a funeral tribute for her brother, her favorite brother. She needed to be heard and proceeded to tell me about how great her brother was. She showed me pictures and told how he was a beloved part of her life. How she wondered who would change light bulbs for her since her super tall brother was gone. In her loss she chose to rave about the goodness of life with her brother. 

We can do the same. We can feel all the feels and chose how they color our life. We can be messy, lost, struggling. We don't have to be perfect, have a perfect facade, or show only our perfect moments. We can be real and be hopeful at the same time. We can deal with today, today. We can let the other 353 days come one day at a  time. We can take our mixed bag and rave about the goodness in it.