It’s what broke me that made me.
At 56 years old, I can say that there were 3 experiences I’ve had that broke me.
1) I was 17 and my favorite thing in the whole world, died very suddenly, my horse. I rode him every day for years. He was my buddy. My confident. And one day, I went out in the morning to feed him to find him soaked. We rushed him off to Tuffs university only for him to die in surgery. We came home with an empty horse trailer and me, empty. I cried for days. It was a loss like no other.
2) When I had a 4 year old and my husband decided he did not want to work on our relationship. We had just moved to a new city… and I had to figure out it out on my own, thinking I had a partner in life. Mistaken I was.
3) When my daughter was misdiagnosed with an eating disorder for 3 months before finding out that really what she had was a pituitary tumor.
I could write a book about each of the experiences above. But that is not what is important here. Maybe another day. What is important is who I became because of each one of those experiences. I became stronger. I became wiser. I became the better version of me.
I have learned, the hard way that it is truly the hardest of times that help make us wise.
I learned:
Cherish what you have. you never know when it will change.
That if I am facing it - I can handle it.
That I am so much stronger than I think I am.
That my daughter is super strong and I trust her with all of who I am.
That I have to dance with whatever shows up.
That most of the time, the drama people create is theirs, not mine. I don’t let it in as best as I can.
To trust myself more than ever.
That people do lousy things just to make themselves feel better. That sucks but it has nothing to do with me.
That I am grateful for the days of nothing. Peaceful days. The normal, simple days.
That I am still learning from those experiences even as time goes on.
People only change when they want to.
So when we are going through the toughest of times, I look for the lessons. I look for the helpers. I try to be a helper as others have been for me. It makes it all worth while. There are alway lessons. There are always helpers. And that brings me peace.
“When written in Chinese, the word ‘crisis’ is composed of two characters. One represents danger, and the other represents opportunity.” – John F. Kennedy
