Manchester Orchestra – Maze
The pier was closed, so we walked around the edges of Port Dal in all its August glory. Dusky mosquitos hovered above the edges of the lake, skies slow to slip into pink, purple, then navy. Having spent the day in seminars together, we were already waist-deep in processing mode.
And there it was, spilling out from somewhere deep in me, a grief that life is not how I expected it to be right now. There was no glossing over that my present can be lonely, that a booming career doesn’t make up for going home alone at the end of the night, that I could very well be going to my friends’ children’s fifth and tenth birthdays without anything changing in my present view. I mourn, at times, for the loss of dreams and expectations.
I don’t claim to understand what grieving the loss of a person feels like. But in a small measure, the way Sheryl Sandberg spoke about processing grief earlier that day made sense to me. She said it’s not personal, it’s not permanent, and it does not permeate my whole life. Tyson Motsenbocker gave further advice, to take the time to re-imagine what this new life looks like, life without these expectations met, and by re-imagining them we can better accept new expectations. This is work I need to keep doing.
These friends understood, thankfully, and Mel said something I won’t soon forget. She said when we begin to realize that our lives could be lived alone, we tend to imagine a fairly bleak view. But that imagining leaves out the reality of how it feels to walk with Christ. It leaves out the peace and joy from spending time with my Saviour, someone I’ve known for twenty-plus years. This is a path I choose, and its familiar and filled with light, and also hard and confusing. But to be truthful, I would rather choose this path with Christ than anything else.
The Full-Tilt Life 