The lucky ones

I wouldn’t say I’m a lucky person. I never win anything. My efforts often mutate into something disappointing. I’m more surprised when plans go right than when they crash spectacularly. Little things like that. But as the new year rolls in and people turn their minds to fresh starts and taking out the trash, I look around me and feel content. The world outside my door is unsustainable and upsetting, but inside this quiet little box I am at peace. I can’t decide if this is the Universe’s way of balancing things out as it’s wont to do or just a change of perspective or even if those two aren’t just the same thing, but I’m desperately grateful for it. My family all gets along. I stood in the kitchen Christmas day and listened to the music of happy chatter in the other room. Hard to miss in such a usually quiet house. Multiple voices all talking at once in several conversations and not a discordant note among them. No strain, no tension. Just the lightness of simple joy. And when they all wandered off to their own places and the house settled into its quiet again, it did so with a comfortable contentment. An acceptance between those who live here, of what is good and what is less good but could be so much worse. An appreciation for the steadiness of it. In my heart, there are no struggles now for anything within my sphere of influence. No more mourning of lost dreams and self-loathing over weaknesses. I see things I want to do differently and think maybe I’ll manage it. Oh well if I don’t. The last couple years have been new depths of loss and pain and anxiety and grief. I met new sides of myself as we never know who we’ll be in those places until we’re there. I don’t feel stronger. I never feel strong. I feel softer. Quieter. I didn’t withstand harder blows. My resilience didn’t thumb its nose at the trials of life. I absorbed each one, let its shadow cover me, carried its weight and the stranger I’d become through every day until the pieces of it loosened and gradually fell away and left me this new and tender skin. I’m emerging from that, but I don’t feel like I’m leaving it behind, just setting it beside me as we go on to whatever’s next. I will continue on through my days as clumsily and imperfectly as ever. But I know that where it really counts most, I am one of the lucky ones.