Last weekend, for the Labor Day holiday, my mom and I drove to Illinois to see my almost-93-year-old grandma. My mom's three brothers live nearby, and it was the kind of family-oriented visit that I haven't experienced in a while. We were busy while we were there but it wasn't the busy of every day life. It was more basic than that. It felt peaceful.
The week that I came home to was anything but. I am many Beckys on a weekly basis, but for every Becky it was a lot. This week was
a lot. I was driving into work this morning and
Drake was talking about
Stephen Colbert's interview with Joe Biden that aired last night, and I knew I would need to wait until I got home to watch it because I would probably cry. And I did.
There are people in my life who are in pain right now deeper than anything I've experienced, and there are people in my life who are ecstatically joyful in a way I sometimes fear I'll never experience. Not long ago, my mother said to me, "
The hardest thing about life is the way that people disappoint you." It was so true, and it hit me so squarely in the chest.
Joe Biden's parents, as I learned from the interview, said many wise things themselves, including something I've been pondering for the last couple hours: "
Never complain and never explain."
Complaining I've been working on for a while, and I'm better than I was. But explaining...miles to go yet on that one.
No comments:
Post a Comment