the both and everything in between

I have worked in humanitarian aid, child welfare, refugee resettlement, hospice. And just as in those contexts, my therapeutic work has me bearing witness to trauma, grief, despair, injustice. I think I have seen, up close, most kinds of suffering possible  within the human experience. Of course, I  have known suffering of my own as well.

I will tell you this: there is never not balance. Lightness in the throes of awful. Awe, even in the darkest dark. Generosity, despite poverty. Singing, no matter pain. Birds nesting in the gutters of condemned houses. Laughter, always laughter— a  respiration: life giving, life releasing. 

I met the saddest man I have ever met today. It wrung my heart out. And. A sign hangs in his kitchen that reads, “If you’re going to be a big poop, go lay out in the yard.” Hilarious.

Do you see? The both and everything-in-between of it all? It is the truest thing I know— of life, of the world. I wish for you to know, too. For you to know, and be rendered by it. And made to chuckle. 

To let it in. 

To let it go.

And again.