Everything's Going to Be Okay, Even If It's Not
Where pessimism and optimism meet.
Renature Yourself Weekly No. 15
After a stormy day where I white-knuckled it through whiteouts to get home—so many cars askew in the ditch that I lost count— I stand in my kitchen door, watching a calm pastel sunset sink below the trees and rooftops. The words suddenly come out of my mouth, quietly and to no one, Everything’s going to be okay, even if it’s not.
It was a rough week, overrun with fear, anger and resentment. Not in response to big life things, but a stacking up of trivialities, one on top of the other, making them feel bigger. As the tension slowly releases, my body feels like an elastic losing its resilience, becoming cracked and crumbly. An exhaustion much different than the jello feeling after working out. A battered weariness of aging.
Historically, when I’ve heard the phrase, “Everything’s going to be okay,” even if I wanted to believe it, the logical part of my brain would argue that not everything could possibly be okay. Struggle is an inherent part of growth’s equation. It reminds me of a line in the movie A Single Man, where Colin Firth’s character says something like, “There’s no guarantee that things will get better.” While it sounds pessimistic, I like how it insists on seeing things more positively now rather than casting positivity to an outlook. Find joy now, whatever the circumstances, because there’s no guarantee it won’t get worse.
Even if it did ‘get worse’, and in some respects it will—our bodies will fail us; loved ones will leave us in physical form; someone will have the audacity once again to chew with their mouth open, or cut you off in line—whatever the case, in the unavoidable suffering things will still be okay, just as the leaves crinkle and fall to form detritus, just as predators devour prey, just as storms rage and the sun still sets and rises. In the same shape our mouths form as we draw a deep breath in, the cycle of struggles forms an ‘O’ by the way we surpass them, and the ‘kay’ the graceful tailwind in each relieving exhale we sigh.
With love,
Tara
Very nice to read, thank you.