One of my journal topics this morning was the idea of unfairness.

I am healing very old wounds and sometimes – usually in moments when I feel exhausted or helpless or hopeless – life seems so incredibly unfair.

Why am I responsible for healing wounds that were caused by others?!

Two thoughts made me feel lighter, and I thought I would share them.

First, it’s not just me.

We are all wounding and being wounded. Usually inadvertently – because a thing I do believe is that we are all doing the very best we can in every moment.

I believe that if we were able to, we would do better.

I believe this because I can follow the threads in my own life to see why I did not do better. There is always a reason. It appears to be the work of a lifetime to do better, and also to forgive myself for all the moments in which I didn’t do better.

Second, life isn’t fair.

Life isn’t fair, because fairness is a human concept.

People can be fair; life just is.

I am continually surprised by the opportunities life offers me for growth + change.

I may not be responsible for what happens to me along the way, but I am choosing to be responsible for how I receive it.

Even if I have (many) moments in which I forget this.

There is a thing I have tried to write about for years. I’ve started & stopped more times than you can possibly imagine.

The very short version is this: There was a time in my life when I wasn’t going to be here anymore.

(By here, I mean in this body, in this world, in this life. The only reason I am still here is because of my Atlas pup. When I say that he saved me, I mean it almost literally.)

Yesterday, I realized that I couldn’t write about it because I was making it too complicated.

I didn’t want to make anyone sad or cause them to worry.

I didn’t think all pain needed to be shared & I wondered if this particular pain did.

I thought I had to share more than I wanted to or needed to or possibly even could.

I thought there was no point in writing about it without including how I got from there to here. (Even if I thought it would add value, I can’t, because I don’t know how I got from there to here at all.)

When we are in darkness, there are so many thoughts that feel true.

I am alone.
I’m a burden.
I’m not needed.
I’m weak.
I should be ashamed.
No one will care.
No one has been here.
No one will understand.

These thoughts feel true, and yet I suspect we’ve all been through darkness.

I suspect we’ve all been through darkness.
Or are in darkness.
Or will be in darkness.

Darkness comes in so many forms & fashions.

How can we feel so alone, when there are so many people there with us?

It turns out that what I wanted to do was so much simpler than I imagined.

I just wanted to share a tiny piece of my story as my way of saying that I am there too.

Because maybe, just maybe, sharing that we’ve walked through darkness, or are walking through darkness – however or whenever or to whomever we share it – can be a tiny pinprick of light in someone else’s darkness.

Postscript: If you ever need someone to talk to, I am here.

Your darkness doesn’t scare me.

I can be with you in your darkness, because I have learned to be with me in mine.

One of the stories in my head is this: If I tell you that I want to spend time with you, you won’t want to spend time with me, even if you actually wanted to up until that moment.

I say it anyway. Because it is honest + true + real and I strive to be all of those things. But what I don’t say is that it takes all of my courage to do so, and I feel both scared and sick as I say it.

Sometimes, the response I get validates (or seems to validate) my story. I know the other person doesn’t know my story. I know my story may or may not be true. And yet it is still so incredibly hard to stay open + curious + vulnerable, to not withdraw, to not react from a place of fear – fear that is solely based on a story.

I was processing one of my stories in my journal and I thought: I would be so embarrassed if anyone read this.

My next thought: But why? Why would I be embarrassed?

I think everyone must tell themselves stories like this.

I am just naming them.

I think about shame a lot.

I used to think that shame was the least useful of our emotions.

The only value I saw in shame was that sometimes it tells us when we have behaved in a way that does not align with our values.

But only sometimes!

Most often, it seems to me, we feel ashamed of ourselves for things that do not warrant it.

We keep these things to ourself, sure that people won’t like us or love us or hire us or be friends with us .. if we are ever foolish enough to reveal them.

I saw no value in that kind of shame.

But after a conversation with a friend yesterday, I have revised my opinion.

I think maybe that kind of shame has the potential to connect us to other people, to our compassion, to our humanness.

When I feel embarrassed or ashamed of myself for something, it feels important to share it. That doesn’t mean I can share it, or do share it, or even want to share it. But there is always a part of me that thinks I need to, that thinks I need to say the thing out loud to someone.

There is something about the shame that pushes me toward truth, toward connection.

Because what I often find to be true is this: We need to know we’re not alone, and we might never know we’re not alone, unless one of us has the courage to be vulnerable first.

Shame thrives in secrecy, in isolation, in darkness.

I don’t want to spend my life there.

I want to live in the light.

I have felt very out-of-sorts lately. The reasons are not important. Suffice it to say: Even when you can recognize that the thoughts in your head are stories you are telling yourself that may or may not be true, that recognition doesn’t always make the thoughts smaller or more manageable. They can still shake your confidence, your worth, your behavior, your openness.

But I caught a cold over the weekend and felt so miserable by Sunday night that I decided to jump in the lake. I thought the shock would jolt me back to health.

As I sank beneath the icy water, it felt like I was being baptized anew. And, as I sat on a piece of driftwood in the warm golden light, I realized that the broken records in my head had finally stopped.

I felt like me again.

Going to the lake always feels like coming home.

Going under always feels like a benediction.

years ago, on a favorite wet muddy spring hike in oregon, i looked into a puddle and saw a story.

right below us was an upside-down version of our world. a small boy was climbing a tree in that world – tree top to tree trunk. when i saw him, he was almost to the roots, at which point he would be able to peer into our world.

when i saw this scene, it made me wish i knew the rest of the story.

i probably never will.

like poems, my tiny stories arrive in the form of what feel like actual downloads into my brain; if i don’t write them down immediately, i lose them.

(i’ve tried to write them myself, but the difference in quality between what i’ve written and what i’ve been given is unmistakable.)

but maybe what i received that day was enough.

maybe the gift lies not in knowing how (or where) the story will go.

maybe the gift lies in a moment of possibility & of wonder.

for years, i’ve had a desire to be fluent in another language.

for just as many years, i’ve made exactly zero progress on it.

i tried to convince myself to learn japanese.
i tried to convince myself to become more proficient in german.
i tried to convince myself to learn italian.
i tried to convince myself to learn spanish.

i had practical reasons for – and, i thought, some level of interest in – learning all of those languages. still, nothing ever happened.

last week, in a moment of clarity, i realized why i was procrastinating.

the language i wanted to learn was french, and french seemed impractical.

when i spoke the reason out loud, it seemed so silly. why did i need a practical reason to learn french? why couldn’t i learn french simply because i wanted to?

and so i am. learning french, that is.

no convincing or forcing required.

for me, the act of learning french is an absolute pleasure. everything about it makes me happy.

it’s the best way to learn, really. i don’t know how i forgot this.

i have a collection of lake superior stones in my bedroom that my tiny nephew-friend ben thinks of as his stones. one day in december, we spent hours in the bedroom playing with them. we put them in rows; we made cars & trucks out of them; and then we made them into snowmen.

there was this one moment where i got a little teary because i could tell how much he was enjoying having my undivided attention and i couldn’t help thinking that that’s all any of us want: for someone else to give us their time + attention + appreciation + focus.

we’re all constantly asking – without ever asking at all – whether we’re noticed, whether we matter, whether we’re worthy.

(which we are. of course we are. but sometimes we need to be reminded.)

in august, i went on an overnight waterfall adventure to celebrate my life with atlas.

it turned out to be the perfect sort of adventure.

at one point, i got part-way down the trail to a waterfall only to find step after step after step. atlas was not a fan of steps, especially in his later years.

and atlas was right there with me. i could feel him! i could feel his presence.

then, i could see him. he was laughing. i heard him say, “you wouldn’t have gotten me down those steps!”

that’s why the adventure was perfect. it was typical: spontaneous & unplanned & not well thought out at all.

atlas would go along happily – he was game for almost anything – until he decided he was done, and then nothing i could do would convince him otherwise.

when i reached black river harbor, i had to walk across a suspension bridge to get to lake superior. it was a hot evening and i had hiked to a few waterfalls already and i really wanted to jump in the lake.

as i walked across the bridge, there was atlas again. he laughed & said, “you know if i were there, you wouldn’t get to the lake!”

because oh, did atlas dislike bridges. he liked to feel the solid ground under his feet. if i absolutely made him go on a bridge, even a floating bridge, he would lie down and belly crawl until i finally took pity on him.

again, so typical.

as i jumped in the lake that evening, i had a huge smile on my face and my heart was full of joy.

joy from the swim in my beloved lake.

joy from the memories of my beloved pup.

but even as i celebrated my life with atlas, there was a moment on the trail during which i realized that there was another reason i took myself on an adventure.

my grampa died in december. atlas died in june. my grama was dying (she died two days later, the morning after i got back). most of my time for the past three years had been spent with the three of them. now, they were all gone or going.

in that moment on the trail, i realized that i had spent so much time sitting with death, watching death come closer & closer, that this was my way of reminding myself that i was still very much alive.

i was awful to atlas one day this past winter.

we were driving home from the ski trails & he had to poop. i couldn’t stop the car in time, so he pooped in the car.

i shouted at him & called him a bad dog & pulled him out of the car none-too-gently.

it was not my shiniest moment.

oh, did i hang onto it.

guilting, shaming, judging, weighing.

this dog saved me and these are the final years of his life and he can’t help that his body is failing him and this is probably the last straw and i’ll never be able to make it up to him and now all he’ll remember are the awful moments and i am clearly the worst person in the entire world.

i want to be my own best friend.

in these moments – the moments in which i behave in a way that is so far from how i want to behave – i am not my friend at all.

not because i behave badly – we all behave badly at times – but because of the way i speak to myself & look at myself afterward.

i’ve been learning to love myself for a long time now.

ten years, i think.

every time i think i’ve got it, something like this happens and it throws me.

but maybe that’s what loving myself deeply means.

facing – again & again – my deeply flawed broken human self and finding a way to love + forgive her.

i was just reading the sweet tribute mama gena wrote to her pup. my favorite lines were these, about people with dogs:

“They are people who have deliberately chosen to let unconditional love into their lives. They are people who want to be reminded daily that they are the most important thing in the world, and worthy of deep relentless adoration and affection.”

oh, did this resonate with me. when atlas came into my life, i didn’t believe i was worthy of love at all. and yet he loved me. fully & completely.

in every moment, he showed me that i was worthy of adoration & affection, simply because i was his person & i existed.

i mean, look at this photo! you know how atlas feels about photos & posing & dogs in costume. and yet he continues to adore me. though let the record reflect that i respected his deep dislike of costumes even though i did take advantage of his fondness for bandanas.

12 years later, i do love myself. fully & completely. the way he loved me all along. in the moments when i falter, there he is, ready (as always) to remind me.

the love of a dog is really something special. and the love of an old dog, oh my. so much slow true depth & richness.