I call these experiences our dark teachers. The lessons that hurt, scare, scar, wound, and almost destroy us are very often the things that make us who we are because they require us to muster what we thought we could not muster—courage, compassion, kindness, forgiveness, love, resilience, strength, generosity of spirit, ferocity of heart. The times we feel lost are the times that require us to find our way. The deepest losses often lead us to our most profound gains.
–Cheryl Strayed, from: It’s From Darkness That Everything Grows, Dear Sugar Letter #2. Originally published on December 31, 2020I don't blame you if you want to reach into your computer screen and punch me in the nose. It can be infuriating to hear that old chestnut "what doesn't kill you makes you strong" when you don't want to be strong or nearly dead or half alive. When you just want your life back before you learned that the person you trusted most with your heart had shattered it.
But bear with me. Because whether or not you're ready to hear this, I want you to store it somewhere in your exhausted brain to pull out on those days when you don't think you can stand another second of this pain. I want you to know that, as Cheryl Strayed puts it, "it's from darkness that everything grows."
Well, maybe not everything. But many, many good things. Like courage and compassion and kindness and forgiveness. Love, strength, ferocity of heart.
Here I am, just weeks past my 28th wedding anniversary, 18 years past my D-Day. I have the long view. And whether or not you stay with your partner or leave, whether or not you rebuild your relationship with him or stick to rebuilding your relationship with yourself, you will — as long as you work through the pain and don't let it fester and rot your soul — come to the day when you, too, have the long view and can see the beauty of what you built in the ashes.
My kids are adults now. They have friends who've been cheated on, friends who've done the cheating. And they are utterly certain that they will never stay with someone who cheats. That they will never cheat.
I was that certain, once.
I have a hunch we all were.
But now we know.
That life isn't always so clear. That there are circumstances that keep us in place even if every part of our being wants to flee. Or circumstances that cause us to flee when every part of our being wants to stay.
I hope my children never do have to experience infidelity in any way, though I know that statistically, one or more of them likely will.
And if not infidelity, I know that life will bring them to their knees one way or the other. A sick child, a job loss, a terrible diagnosis. None of us emerges without our scars.
But let's note again just what is forged in that darkness if we let it: courage, compassion, kindness, forgiveness. Love, resilience, strength, generosity of spirit, ferocity of heart.
May that be yours.
Maybe not today. But soon.