12/27/20
I’m trying to formulate my thoughts, to be concise, to deliver a punchy line – but nothing is coming out right.
In my few trips around the sun, I’ve come to realize that the burden of life is no stagnant thing. It is elusive, intricate, and flowing – and I think this is good. Balance, you know.
I have poignant memories of times when life was especially lighthearted. I remember months working summer camps where my main struggle was lack of sleep. I think about driving back roads in my hometown with my high school best friend, springtime in the park with a book, fishing with my brothers in the back yard at my dad’s house.
But the pendulum swings. I think about hard days, grumpy moods, and tragedy. In my educational career, I’ve learned about trauma. The way that trauma impacts the brain, different methods of working with people who have experienced trauma – and as this year comes to a close, my beautiful city has experienced yet another trauma. An intentional act of violence that rattled what was left of our bones. The unwanted bookend to a tornado-pandemic-civil-unrest-physical-isolation-political-strife-filled year.
And my heart feels wounded. Like she’s suffered too many blows and can’t find her footing to stand again, isn’t sure if she wants to stand again. It’s too risky.
I’m not saying that there isn’t hope to be found. On the contrary, I believe that hope exists around every corner, with each breath we breathe, in each moment our world turns.
But as life shifts, as our meaning-making shifts, as we begin and continue to experience and remember and redefine, we must make space for it all. Grief. Anger. Despair. Hope. Doubt. Joy. And there are days where it seems I feel each of these things in the same hour with a depth that leaves me reeling.
If you’ve rounded the corner, I’m happy for you. I hope to join you soon. If you’re with me at this weird ass buffet table of thoughts and emotions, I’m glad we’re here together.
Lightly,
Leah
Leah Kepley, M.Ed. 