I Always Come Back

Lately the little girl I take care of throughout the week has been having a hard time with nap time.  Now I know that most kids do but not this little girl. She almost always does not give a huge fuss and goes through nap routine just fine. Well, not so much as of lately because I have been leaving right after I put her down. She has noticed this of course and so lately has been giving me a hard time for nap. It just so happened that this past week I held her close to me and let her know that I always come back tomorrow. “I always come back, remember?” I said. She repeated that and we went on fuss free with our nap routine. Right before closing her bedroom door she said trustingly, thumb in her mouth and all, you always come back. I closed the door getting tears in my eyes. Yeah, I always come back.

This past week I got a very important voicemail. All week I had been waiting for this call to be returned but also dreading it. The message held our future. Unfortunately, it was what my instincts had kept telling me all along. Bad news. The home that we had been promised 3 months ago was now out of reach. The little light of hope we had been protecting to believe this was going to work out fizzled out. I knew it, my instincts are almost always right but still cheerful hope scooched up next to me and how could I resist it. Upon realization of this I let some friends know the news and was graciously met with I’m with yous. Still having to go to work I got dressed and tried to get myself distanced from the reality. Compartmentalize. I unfortunately for the rest of the week was impatient and under energized. I guess that compartmentalize thing doesn’t quite work well enough for me.

I found myself going back to that day of that sweet little girl remembering how I always come back. Don’t we do that too but with other things? I know I do. I know that when disaster strikes my hope is always lingering, whispering, letting me know that it always comes back. When my faith in humanity gets lost over horrible events in the world my faith is always there reminding me that it always comes back. When love is something that seems too hard to participate in its always there throughout my day reminding me not to fret. When doubt, anger and frustration are all that I am stubbornly holding onto then I remind myself that all the things that hold me up will always come back to me. No matter how many times I push it all away. The hard heart was not meant to stay.

One thing I mentioned to my friends upon telling them the news was the hope that they could hold me up because I could not do that for myself that day. Most days it feels like holding myself up with the usual stuff of hope, love and peace is something only other people have the ability and luck to do. But here I am rising up, holding my soul up. There are people all around us, all around the world choosing to continue to be open to the things that are hope, love and peace. 

Hard hearts were not made to stay but to give us time to grieve. Holding ourselves up to continue moving in the world is an absolute strength. There is tremendous courage in allowing our hearts get hard, in throwing tantrums and stopping our good movement in the world because we have to decide to come back. We have to decide to allow the good things to come back and remind us of how important our movement of hope, love and peace in the world really is.

There is so much courage in all of us who have experienced the darkness and continue to move in the world with peace slung on our backs.

The good things always come back. Some might even dare say that they never ever left us.