Thoughtful About . . . It Hitting

by Roseanna White | Oct 31, 2013 | Remember When Wednesdays, Thoughtful Thursdays, Uncategorized

An approaching storm front we captured in the Outer Banks this summer

When you get bad news…or sad news…what do you do? It’s inevitable that we run into these times–they’re part of life, much as we wish they weren’t.

We’re going to have those days when we cry.

We’re going to have those days when we yell.

We’re going to have those days when we feel like the best course is to hide from the world.

Ever since I was a middle-schooler, I’ve pondered my own reactions to these times. I remember when we got the news that my grandfather had cancer. My parents cried. My sister cried. There was much hugging. There was much talk.

I closed myself into my room with a pencil and a notebook, and I wrote poem called, “Why Do I Smile?” I happen to have it on my computer, surprisingly, LOL, so I’ll copy it:

The days melt together in a turmoil of ache.
Their only distinction is a separate pain.
I feel that my future’s not mine to make.
So why do my dreams suspend–unslain?
Each person has their own losses;
Each deals with them in their own way.
Most cry as they carry their crosses.
Why do I smile and laugh it away?
My world has diminished to shatters,
But my eyes are as dry as the breeze.
As hope lies around me in tatters,
I sing as I fall to my knees.
Why can’t I mourn as my mother,
Or weep it away as my friend?
Why must I resort to another—
Stronger?—more miserable end?
I can’t see into tomorrow
So I don’t know that I’ll make it that mile.
Even I can’t see past my own sorrow.
So tell me, why do I smile?

Thirteen-year-old me didn’t really have the answer. Thirty-one-year-old me doesn’t either, but it hasn’t changed. I still, upon getting upsetting news, am more likely to smile and assure everyone I’m okay than cry and let them assure me it will be okay. And it’s not a facade–that’s my genuine, gut reaction. The eternal optimist. The faith, perhaps, holding me up.

But it always hits a month or two later. Every single time I’ve gotten a rejection on a project I thought was sold, for instance (which has happened way too many times, LOL), I’ve experienced this. I can smile and assure my critique partners it’s no big thing. I know that God’s got something better for me. That it was no surprise to Him. I know it, and so I can smile.

Until I can’t anymore. When it hits, it hits like a waterfall, tumbling over me without relent. Those are the days when I mourn for what was lost, or for what I know will be lost soon. I grieve for what cannot be. I look at the projects or dreams or loved ones snatched from me, and I ache. I whimper. I want to cry, but by then I can’t seem to find any tears. (This is why Roseanna cries maybe twice a year. Usually over something stupid like forgetting to pay a bill, LOL.)

It’s so hard not to be discouraged in those times. And in the throes of discouragement, what you know doesn’t often help, because you’re too overwhelmed by what you feel. If only the two could line up!

As you might guess, I’m having a delayed reaction this week, LOL. Nothing as terrible as the impending loss of my grandfather, just a bunch of disappointments adding up, and the old ones that I thought settled coming to add their voices to the mix. One of those days, one of those weeks.

And so I ponder. Again. I wonder why I deal with things the way I do. Is it the right way? The wrong way? The strong way, the weak way? I don’t know. But it’s my way. It’s my way to smile until it hits, to smile again as soon as I can. It’s my way to mourn quietly.

This time, I’m sharing the feeling if not all the reasons, not in a bid for sympathy, but in a laying-bare, to see if it helps in the healing. In a question of how you manage these days, these weeks, so I can listen for the whisper of the great Healer in the voices of my friends.

So please, share. What do you do when the tempest strikes?