When Life has been Lifing… A Little too hard.

And the Things I’m Still Trying to Figure Out

It’s funny how much time we spend wishing our days away.

Wishing it was Friday. Wishing the weekend was longer. Wishing the laundry would fold itself, the house would clean itself, and someone else would figure out what we’re having for dinner.

We look forward to vacations, holidays, and all those special occasions that give us something to be excited about.

And somewhere in between, we have all those perfectly ordinary days.

The ones where nothing particularly exciting happens. We go about our routines, complain about the weather, worry about our to-do lists, and occasionally wonder how it’s possible that we just cleaned the kitchen and somehow it’s already a disaster again.

Just life being life.

But lately, I’ve been reminded how quickly all of that can change.

How an ordinary day can suddenly become anything but ordinary.

And it’s made me think about how much we take for granted without even realizing we’re doing it.

I think most of us go through life with this quiet assumption that tomorrow will look pretty much like today. That the people we love will be there. That the plans we’ve made will work out. That we’ll have plenty of time to do all those things we’ve been putting off.

Of course, we know that’s not always how life works.

We’re not naive. We’ve lived long enough to know better.

But knowing something and being faced with the reality of it are two very different things.

And that’s where I find myself struggling a little.

Because how exactly are we supposed to prepare ourselves for the things we can’t possibly imagine?

How do we acknowledge that life can change in an instant without spending every waking moment worrying that it will?

I don’t know.

And maybe that’s what has surprised me most about this stage of life.

I thought by now I’d have more answers.

After fifty-something years of living, loving, making mistakes, learning lessons, and collecting enough life experience to fill a few books, shouldn’t I have at least some of this figured out?

Apparently not.

Instead, I sometimes find myself asking bigger questions than ever before.

Questions about time, faith, purpose, and why life can be so incredibly beautiful and so terribly unfair.

Questions about whether there’s a bigger plan, or whether some things simply happen and we’re left trying to make sense of them.

And questions about how to hold on to the joy of living when we know just how fragile life can be.

I wish I had a brilliant answer to all of that.

Preferably one I could write down, highlight, and add to one of my many lists.

But I don’t.

When Life Doesn’t Go Back to Normal

There’s another question I’ve been wrestling with, too.

What happens when life really does change?

Not just a bad day or an unexpected inconvenience. I’m talking about the kind of experience that divides your life into a before and an after.

The kind that leaves you wondering how you’re supposed to pick up the pieces and go on.

We hear stories of people experiencing unimaginable heartbreak, loss, illness, or circumstances that completely change the lives they knew.

And somehow, they keep going.

They get out of bed. They go to work. They make dinner. They laugh again.

And I find myself wondering, how?

How do you find your way back to happiness when the life you knew no longer exists?

How do you stop being afraid that something else might happen?

And how do you convince yourself that it’s okay to enjoy life again?

I don’t think there’s a magic formula for that.

I don’t think there’s a checklist we can follow, although you know I’d be the first person to make one if there were.

And I certainly don’t think anyone should feel pressured to find a silver lining in something that has caused them pain.

Some things are simply heartbreaking. Some things are unfair. And sometimes we may never understand why they happened.

But I’ve been thinking about the difference between moving on and moving forward.

Moving on can sound like we’re supposed to leave something behind. Like there’s a certain amount of time we’re allowed to be sad, frightened, or overwhelmed before we’re expected to get back to normal.

But what if normal doesn’t exist anymore?

Maybe moving forward isn’t necessarily about getting over something.

Maybe it’s about slowly learning how to carry it.

Making room for the sadness, the fear, or the uncertainty without believing those feelings mean we’ll never experience happiness again.

Maybe there are days when getting out of bed is enough.

And maybe, eventually, there are days when something makes us laugh, and for a moment, life feels a little lighter.

Not because we’ve forgotten what happened.

Not because everything is suddenly okay.

But because joy and sadness can exist in the same life.

And perhaps that’s a kind of hope worth holding on to.

The Fear of Losing Someone You Love

I think there’s another part of all this that I struggle with.

It’s one thing to worry about what life might throw at us. It’s another thing entirely to imagine losing someone who has been such a big part of our lives that we can’t imagine what life would look like without them.

How do you even begin to prepare yourself for something like that?

Can you?

I’m not sure you can. At least not emotionally.

We build lives with people. We create routines, traditions, memories, and a thousand little things that become so familiar we barely notice them anymore.

And somewhere along the way, those people become part of what makes our world feel safe and familiar.

The thought of that changing can be absolutely paralyzing.

We know we can’t protect the people we love from everything. We can’t control what happens tomorrow, no matter how desperately we might want to.

But we also can’t spend our lives preparing ourselves to lose the very people who make those lives worth living.

What kind of life would that be?

I don’t know how to make peace with that uncertainty. I’m not even sure it’s something we ever completely make peace with.

But I do know that I don’t want fear to steal the time I have with the people I love.

I don’t want to spend a perfectly good day worrying about the possibility of a terrible one.

And I certainly don’t want to look back someday and realize I was so busy worrying about losing the people I love that I forgot to fully enjoy having them in my life.

Maybe that’s where gratitude comes in.

Not as a way to protect ourselves from heartbreak.

Not as a guarantee that everything will turn out okay.

But as a reminder to appreciate the love, the laughter, the companionship, and even the beautifully ordinary routines that make up our lives right now.

Finding Gratitude Without Living in Fear

I don’t want to be so afraid of what tomorrow might take away that I forget to appreciate what today has given me.

But how do we actually do that?

How do we appreciate the present without constantly reminding ourselves that it might not last?

I wish I knew.

I suppose that’s another one of those questions I thought I’d have figured out by now.

But here’s something I am beginning to understand.

I don’t think gratitude is supposed to come from fear.

I don’t want to hug the people I love because I’m terrified I might lose them. I want to hug them because I love them.

I don’t want to appreciate an ordinary evening at home because I’m worried it could be the last one.

I want to appreciate it because there’s something wonderful about being comfortable, safe, and surrounded by the familiar pieces of my life.

And I don’t want to spend every day reminding myself how quickly everything could disappear.

I just want to get better at noticing what’s here.

Maybe that’s the difference.

Not living as though every moment might be our last, but recognizing that the moments we’re living right now deserve our attention.

And here’s the thing. I also don’t think appreciating life means we have to walk around feeling grateful and happy every second of every day.

Because, seriously, who can do that?

We can be annoyed with our husbands. We can get frustrated with our kids. We can have days when we want to crawl back into bed, pull the covers over our heads, and pretend the world doesn’t exist.

And still be incredibly grateful for the life we have.

Those things aren’t mutually exclusive.

We don’t have to love every moment of our lives to recognize that our lives are filled with moments worth loving.

I think that’s an important distinction.

Because sometimes the pressure to be positive can become just another thing we feel like we’re failing at.

We’re told to look on the bright side, count our blessings, find the good in every situation, and make the most of every day.

And while I understand the intention behind those messages, sometimes life is just hard.

Sometimes we’re going to be sad.

Sometimes we’re going to be angry.

Sometimes we’re going to wonder why things happen the way they do.

And I don’t think any of that means we’re ungrateful.

It means we’re human.

Maybe being positive isn’t about finding something good in every bad situation.

Maybe it’s about not losing sight of the possibility that good things can still exist, even when life is difficult.

Maybe the Ordinary Moments Are the Extraordinary Ones

The more I think about all of this, the more I keep coming back to those ordinary days.

The ones we rarely think twice about.

The familiar voice coming from the other room.

The conversations about absolutely nothing.

The laughter over something ridiculous that probably wouldn’t be funny to anyone else.

The routines. The little annoyances. The quiet evenings when nothing particularly memorable happens.

All those moments that don’t seem important enough to photograph, write about, or remember.

Until we realize they’re the very things that make up our lives.

I still want the adventures. I still want to travel, try new things, step outside my comfort zone, and create a life that feels exciting and meaningful.

That’s part of why I started this journey in the first place.

But I don’t want to become so focused on creating a wonderful life that I overlook the wonderful life that’s already happening around me.

And maybe that’s something I can work on.

Not by completely changing the way I live.

Not by adding another twenty things to my already ridiculous number of lists.

But by paying a little more attention.

Putting my phone down during a conversation.

Laughing a little longer at something silly.

Taking an extra moment to appreciate the people who make my ordinary days feel like home.

And maybe even learning to enjoy an uneventful Tuesday instead of wishing it were Friday.

I’m not going to get it right every day.

I’ll still worry about things I can’t control. I’ll still overthink decisions, make plans that don’t work out, and occasionally get so caught up in what needs to be done that I forget to enjoy what I’m doing.

And let’s be realistic. I’m definitely still going to complain about the laundry.

But maybe I can learn to slow down just enough to recognize the good things that are already here.

I don’t know what tomorrow holds.

I don’t know how to prepare for every unexpected turn life might take.

And I certainly don’t have all the answers to the bigger questions I’ve been asking lately.

But perhaps I don’t need to.

Maybe I don’t need to have life figured out.

Maybe I don’t need to know what comes next.

Maybe I just need to stop overlooking today.

Because an ordinary day is only ordinary until you realize how extraordinary it really is.