When I was sad and felt like no one understood me, I would go into my brother’s room while he was watching tv and lay my head on his lap and cry. There were times in high school that I just couldn’t take the pressure anymore. My sister and I didn’t know until much much later in adulthood that we BOTH did that throughout our high school years. He was the perfect brother for us.
I look back on those moments fondly. There is something about sitting in your grief with someone else that doesn’t try to fix it, that just works. He would usually just put his hand on my hair and continue watching his tv show.
He never said a word.
Sometimes I wonder if he wanted to, or if he even understood what was going on, but in the end, it didn’t matter. Someone who loved me, was there for me, and he let me be whatever I was in the moment. That kind of relationship is a gift.
Seems a little like a relationship that I have now with Someone else.
In those moments I was broken. In those moments the pain from the pressure and stress of being a teenager was all I could see, but now looking back I can see that experience for what it really was…another stepping stone. I became a little bit closer to who I’d eventually become.
That idea is so exciting to me. If I was molded by experiences I was having when I was a teenager, then it stands to reason that it would still be happening today. The pain of every situation I feel currently is making me a little closer to being the me that I was supposed to become.
Remind me of that please, when I forget that the pain I walk through will be a light of inspiration someday. All I have to do is walk through it, and allow it the time it needs to become a blessing to me.
I seem to forget that in all my humanness.
