A bouquet of pink tulips with slightly bruised petals. My favorite black textured tights, with a hidden run too high for anyone to see. A brave, cheer-you-up blue sky, almost springlike, and punishing winds that whip right through my plaid coat. Tired eyes and low energy in the morning, and comforting cups of chai, strong Yorkshire and Earl Grey.
These are the details of my life this week. And it’s oh-so-tempting to spin them one way or another.
We do that a lot on the Internet, don’t we? Take the threads of our lives, and spin them in a certain way, positive or negative, pulling and twisting them to suit our frame of mind. As I did on Twitter yesterday: “Combating tiredness with pink tulips, a chai latte, the Puppini Sisters and a long to-do list. Hello Tuesday.” I did pause before I wrote that, knowing it could just as easily have been the other way: “I have pink tulips, a chai latte and the Puppini Sisters. But I have a to-do list as long as my arm. SO tired.”
It’s tempting to choose one way or another – to appear ever cheery, staunchly optimistic, to show the world a stiff upper lip and only post the photos that show order and calm. Frankly, it’s also tempting to go the other way: to rant and rave, complain and whine, knowing someone will offer a sympathetic ear, a “me too” to help us through the day. But the truth is so much more complicated. The truth is rarely either-or. The truth, instead, is both-and.
I’m tired this week, struggling against the late-winter blues and several deadlines and crowded commutes. I’m deeply grateful for new bookshelves and letters from pen pals and beautiful books and Mary Tyler Moore. I’m excited for the first meeting of our new book club, and I’m sad, wishing I could travel two thousand miles to attend my sister’s baby shower this weekend.
It’s all true. All of it. The hopeful and the depressing; the deep joy and the deep pain; the little, everyday precious blessings and the equally ubiquitous frustrations. And though it’s difficult to hold it all in tension, I am slowly learning not to spin it, to accept the deep and complicated fact that it’s all part of this thing called life.
How do you make peace with living in a both-and world?
Katie, this is a lovely post. I feel this pull, too, between the two stark sides I present publicly (usually: YAY or UGH!). Blogging is good for so many things, but conveying nuance is usually not one of them!
This is all so true. It’s always a struggle to know how much of one’s life to show on one’s blog. On the one hand you don’t want to reveal too many personal details or seem to complain all the time… but on the other hand, a little “realness” is valid. For my part, I’ve just learned that I’m working all weekend… but my mom and aunts are coming next weekend… and it’s pouring rain out… but I’m wearing my Friday pants and I just ate some hash browns.
I don’t have answers, but I felt that so much last week as I dealt with several unexpected things — both-and — an out-of-town friend coming in and a friend with a child temporarily in the hospital; a rare day off for my kids and 5.5 hours worth of extra meetings.
My both-and struggle is about how to be attentive to those around me — family, friends, and students — and how to complete the urgent demands of home and work. Ugh.
I think I rally needed to hear this today. I’m a person who’s so much more comfortable living in shades of gray, but in working through S.A.D. I’m finding that more and more I’m stuck in one or the other, happy or sad, peppy or lethargic, optimistic or low. We do spin life online, but it’s just as easy right now to do it in my own mind, to be the Christy I want to be, instead of living in tension. And sometimes I need to put the spin out there in cyberland to feel like I can achieve it myself.
This is perfect. I try to convince my students of this very idea in lit classes. Characters aren’t ALL good or ALL bad; they’re complicated! They’re messy! So are stories, and absolutely so is life.
Brilliant, Katie. Yes, exactly. Witnessing life, participating in it, without judging every moment is a huge blessing. Learning to hold the balance of things, recognising that this – whatever this is – will surely pass, allows us to appreciate what is in front of us. Not in a Pollyanna way, but in a true way, a Velveteen-Rabbit-Real way.
And when we admit to, when we acknowledge that each moment is a both-and moment, out loud, we give others permission to do the same. We can savour what is real. Beautiful post.
Katie, you are spot on here. It’s tempting to go in either direction. Or once you decide where you’re going, to throw in caveats and justifications. I’m learning to accept the tension of being where I am the way that I am without explaining myself.
Love this! I have been visiting your blog on a regular basis for a few months now. It draws me in…kind of like a warm, inviting cafe/book shop on a cold winter day…