When Things Are Going Well.
Embracing the Wonderful and Terrifying Place of Having Things Go a Little Too Well...
Most of my writing draws from pain I’ve experienced. I suppose that’s true of my work as a therapist as well. The depth of how well I know grief, loneliness, and despair seems to act as a bridge from my soul to another’s. With or without words, when I acknowledge my vulnerability, wounds, and longings, it’s like a message that says, “You are not alone, I see you, I’m here with you, you don’t have to do this alone or without hope any longer.”
I’ve experienced heartache in the most specific and random of ways throughout my life, and it’s making things really confusing in the season that I’m currently in — one where things are going well, like, a little too well…
When part of me wants to celebrate the sweet gifts and opportunities that are stacking up ahead of me, another part of me slams the breaks. As I try to stay regulated in the midst of emotional whiplash, I sense that it feels way too risky to trust the good things in front of me. They seem, well, good. And I’m not sure where to fit those things anymore.
As an adult, there were two traumatic experiences that take the cake for most noteworthy events that impacted my life. Just before both of those events, plans were coming together for really exciting transitions, transitions that had the depths of my soul swooning — welling up with anticipation and joy. And in both instances, despite being years apart, in different cities (even different states), involving different people, and being totally different in pretty much every other way possible — despite those differences, they left me in the same place. Utterly blindsided, shocked, and trying to pick up the pieces of what had just been shattered, uncertain about what I would rebuild in front of me.
In the second instance, six years ago now, I was noticing that I was feeling unsettled about the transition ahead of me. I was so excited and at the same time, it just felt too similar, too similar to the transition I thought I was going to make years before that. I worried that things would somehow blow up again in an unthinkable way. Friends and my own self tried to talk myself down, that it was just me feeling triggered, and things would be different this time. And then, they were and they weren’t.
Circumstances were entirely different, but the gut feelings were the same. I was perplexed by how something so unexpected could enter in and change everything, again. And now, years later, as one sweet piece of things after the other is coming together for a transition ahead of me, scared and wounded parts of me are hiding, shuddering, and grieving — both for the past, and what they fear is ahead of them in the future.
All of this is just a rambling way to say that I don’t know how to trust sweet and good things happening, especially the really big sweet and good things that can happen in life. I don’t know how to trust God or what that even looks like when I know God’s goodness isn’t dependent on what God does or doesn’t do. I don’t know how to simply sit in God’s presence and let that tend to my soul when to slow down and really feel the weight of all this anticipation feels so overwhelming to the weary and scarred facets of my being.
And all of this doesn’t even get into how sad it feels not to be able to simply celebrate good and sweet things, but to instead have them muddied up with the past, with fears, with worries and the protective anticipation of which shoe will drop next.
I’m curious if any of this resonates with anything you’ve ever felt. If you’ve experienced the bittersweet pain and joy of things going well, teetering between embracing what’s in front of you, and escaping to find shelter, waiting for the storm that you’re sure is about to hit — wondering, what will the plot twist be this time? What will the unexpected event be that takes out the hopes of what’s in front of you? What will the new creative narrative be that’s woven into your story, even though you never asked or imagined it would be?
I’m going to resist the urge to tie a bow on this post and simply say, if you’ve ever felt this way, you’re not alone. Whatever is good and sweet in your life, I hope there are spaces where you can enjoy it, and if needed, I hope that scared and wounded parts of you can find comfort and rest as they navigate the anticipation of what is to come, and the discomfort of never knowing what that will actually be.