a shout-out to everyone trying

The other day I was sitting in my van pumping hand sanitizer onto my hands and I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the rearview mirror. It surprised me despite wearing it, honestly, to see the mask, the orange and red and green flecks, covering my face. I stared back at my own eyes and in that moment, there it was, this bravery and sadness and trying, mashed together. 

How did this become the new normal?

As the sanitizer dried on my hands and the bags from Target tucked in the back, I sat there, in the familiar and now unfamiliar parking lot thinking about life. Honestly I felt tired. Tired from the news, tired from the unknowns, tired from the divisiveness. Just plain and simply tired.

These last months have felt like a race that we have run despite not seeming to go anywhere.

So. Much. Trying.

My eyes felt teary in the tired. Alone in a way. And then I looked to my left and there in the van next to me was a mom helping her child get the sanitizer on her hands. We glanced at each other. Solidarity.

Nothing else needed to be said, honestly. The words didn’t need to be spoken.

It was this deep level of trying.

I see you too.

Let me just start with that. I see how hard you try. I see how humbling it can be in this time. I see how there are so many unknowns. I see your bravery. 

You see, bravery rarely looks like the bravest moments in the movies. Rather it is you and me, moms and dads, deciding to pull up the covers each night and look into the eyes of our children and reassure them that they are safe. We show up. Over and over and over. And all of that showing up, all of that trying, all of that giving can feel like so much more than it did a year before. 

A year before. 

I think back to me lamenting that life was too busy and wanting a moment to slow down and here I am in the midst of a slow down and I look back at those busy days with this new found, deep appreciation for the simplicity in the busy. My busy life of schedules and graduations and trips and soccer feels so simple now. The variables easier than the denominator of unknown that we exist with now.

That denominator is universal.

Yet, I realized in that moment in the van, I have immense power in deciding to see the good, despite the hard. There is so much good still. There is so much, despite the rocking of our worlds. And that in the moment we decide to see the good we are exercising such bravery and power. That’s the moment when life pivots, when opportunities awake, when we push past the challenges.

But it takes recognizing the space we start in. It takes seeing the change, the metamorphosis and not stuffing the feelings down. It takes dealing with them and instead of sitting in them, finding the power in them. 

You are not alone. 

Thank you for trying.

Thank you for trying when you have the answers.

Thank you for trying when you don’t.

Thank you for trying when you feel great.

Thank you for trying when you don’t.

Thank you for trying when life is overwhelming.

Thank you for trying when life is simple.

Thank you for trying when you feel alone.

Thank you for trying when you feel on top of the world.

Thank you for trying in the good days.

Thank you for trying on the hard days.

Thank you for trying.

As I drove from Target, with the mask tucked to my side and my eyes on the road something else filled my soul – hope.

Trying is the spark of hope.

It’s time we appreciated the trying.

Thank you.

~Rachel 

#findingjoy