I read a lot of blogs and books about really messed up people. Memoirs about psychologically disturbed people are about the only books I can actually finish these days. I like reading about alcoholics and drug addicts and people who eat too much or nothing at all. I like reading about suicide survivors and cutters and people lost in worlds that make no sense to any one but them.
And I guess it’s because those worlds make sense to me.
Because this real world that we all live in is terrifying. Tragedy strikes seemingly randomly. We can start out a day full and healthy and loved and happy and end it with nothing.
Those are the big stories. The headlines. The situations that make the news.
A lot of the tragedy is a lot quieter. It doesn’t make waves. No on else sees it.
It’s the child who silently wonders why no one likes him and finally comes to the conclusion that he is unlikeable. It’s the twelve year old girl who always feels different and alone, and finally she decides that those feelings would go away if her thighs were smaller. But unfortunately something in her brain snaps and she no longer can think of anything except disappearing. It’s the new mom, the normal, everyday, run of the mill lady who all of a sudden finds herself so lost in a sea of misfiring hormones that the only feeling stronger than her hatred of life is her love for her child.
Life happens. It happens all the time, every day to every one of us. None of us come out unscathed. None of us lives in glass castles. If we do, they are quickly shattered.
And I sit here, watching my three little ones putting tiaras on their rocking horse and building forts out of afghans, and I know without doubt that life will happen to them. I don’t know if their tragedies will be loud or if they will be silent. I don’t know if we will all witness them or if they will be hidden deep behind their eyes.
But they will experience them.
And perhaps the only thing that is equally as terrifying as the tragedies is the fact that they will come up with ways to deal with them. They will devise plans for dealing with the heartbreak and the confusion and the pain that life will throw their way.
And the more I read the books of the broken people, the more I see that they are just like you and I. Sometimes they are you and I. Tragedy is what we have in common; the way we cope is what separates us.
And I want to take my girls and whisper in their ears. I want to tell them that they are good enough. They are smart enough. They can handle it. They don’t need to hide behind coping strategies that will become tragedies in themselves.
But life doesn’t work that way. My words will fall on closed ears. The only words that will matter to them are the ones I tell myself. The ones that prompt my actions, the ones that define the actions they will emulate.
I can’t fix their problems. I can’t anticipate their challenges. I can’t approve every action they ever take.
All I can do is love them now. Hold them. Tell them they are smart and kind and clever and beautiful. And pray. Pray desperately that when the tragedies strike my words can buffer the storms and be the raft they can ride to safety on.
But it may not be enough. As loud as I try to be, the world might just be louder.
And that is the most terrifying thought of all.
So instead of wallowing in a terror that can never be calmed, I will just hold them in my arms, cuddle them all close, and thank God that today they are little and mine and my kiss can banish their tears.