It was too perfect how all the details of the day fell together that Sunday - the timed meetings with four friends and the conversations that were life-giving and full of dreams for the future. And yet, I fell into bed stuck in a spiral of exhausted thoughts because I didn’t think I’d have the energy to do it all again on Monday.
I could hear the frustration in my colleague’s voice as people with more authority than we have proposed changes we couldn’t understand, and I felt bad that my sympathy only reached so far because I was still excited about my new role in it all.
The house was full of balloons for the 7-year-old who would be home in an hour, and I stood in the kitchen frosting cupcakes when the text came through with two simple words that disturbed my work and my heart: “It’s cancer.”
I’m sure we’re all familiar with scenarios like these, in which life tastes bitter and sweet at the same time. We feel caught between the emotions, the ones we want to feel, those thrust upon us, and the whole gamut in between. Whichever emotion we choose to lean into, we feel guilty or possibly even offend someone for not being fully engaged in the other emotion as well. Can you relate? Or is it just me? It has felt especially exaggerated in this political climate as I’m frequently asked for the European/German/TCK perspective and know I’ll never do either side justice with my limited observations and experience; I dread this coming week when half of my friends will be jubilant and the other half devastated. And a single election can’t begin to compare to all of life with its numerous highs and lows. I’ve found myself asking the question: how can I be both in the valley and on a mountain top at the same time? Is that possible? Healthy? Can I both love being with people and just want to sleep? How in the world do I celebrate a much-anticipated birthday well yet lament my friend’s cancer at the same time?
A wise woman recently challenged my analogy of the mountains and valleys. She offered the following alternative: Instead of a hiker constantly going up or down, imagine you’re a train on its two tracks. One track is more of what we’d call the pleasant stuff like new jobs and time with friends and birthday cupcakes, which of course makes the other one the disappointments in life, rather like fatigue, frustration, and disease. At times our train may go around corners, and we’ll lean more toward one track over the other, but in general life is made up of both the gentle and the rough, the rose and the thorn, the smile and the tear. To pretend only one is true is to ignore half of the journey God has us on because there are surely lessons to be learned in being aware of both.
I’m not saying it’s easy. I rather think I must be a clumsy little steam engine at times, trying to know which emotion to focus on at any given moment, but I do like the idea that I don’t need to dread when a current high will come to an end and suddenly be a valley again. The good and the bad, they’re both present in my life. And the slats connecting the two train tracks, holding it all together and making forward motion possible? That’s Jesus.
