Yesterday morning, my husband and I walked through a farmer’s market then crossed a bridge and wove our way down quiet streets, around traffic cones and construction fences, and along a river to a Japanese garden.
I wish my imagination was grand enough to have allowed me to melt into the garden and transport to a faraway place, just for a day. But, I’ve lost my touch with make-believe in this unsteady season of teenager parenting and stagnant middle-age.
Losing my focus to fantasy seems too precarious when life presses against the sharp edges of reality. Sometimes the sharpness is a hi-def clarity of goodness that begs for a prayer of thanks, but other times, piercing pain of a loved one’s struggle or the dysfunction of a relationship bears great burden on my soul.
Reality garners the sharpness of a double-edged dagger-the beauty and the bitterness.
And then there is the outside messaging slicing peace into tiny bits, enough to want to run away, far away, not for the thrill of new places, but to escape the impending despair.
I’ll admit, finding the softness of a happy heart amid all the “reality” has been difficult for me.
Later that afternoon, I began to plan a birthday celebration for one of my children. I considered him in a tender, careful way, reflecting on what he loves and who he is and how I can make our time special. This shift in thinking-from the gloom of a lost imagination to that hi-def clarity of the goodness of my child, brightened my heart. And I realized something very true:
Whatever ugly is out there, whatever lies try to destroy my peace, whatever mistakes keep me from feeling good in my own skin, it’s all nothing compared to the love I’ve been granted to bestow upon others. Especially my children. It’s what I was made to do. Even in this messed up world.
And for that moment, I was happy. I had found it. And it had nothing to do with me. And it was very, very real. In the best way.
angie dicken 