Resilience is one of my all time favorite words. And as a writer, I LOVE the words. This one, in particular, communicates strength of character and true grit to me. Yes, the John Wayne kind of true grit. 

Here’s the definition of the word:

Resilience: to be able to recoil or spring back into shape after bending, stretching, or being compressed.

LOVE.

Lately, in my life, there’s been lots of bending, stretching and being compressed. Expectations I had for my future, professionally and otherwise, have been summarily dashed and I find myself embarking on a completely new landscape. One for which I have no prior experience.

And it’s terrifying.

But at the same time, I find myself kind of in awe of me (yes, I once won a humility award button but they took it away because I wore it). There have been so many curve balls and unexpected turns and break downs . . . and yet, here I am.

I’m still too young to sing Sondheim’s “I’m Still Here”. Elaine Stritch once said you shouldn’t sing it until you’re at least 50. But the sentiment of the song is starting to ring very true to me. I understand the lyrics. I used to hear that song and think, what’s the big deal? OK, you’ve had good times and bad times and you’re still here. . . .doesn’t seem that heroic, really.

Ah . . .but it IS. 

“The glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.” Nelson Mendela

I’ve used that quote before. And I’ll use it again. Because as new challenges and new burdens come my way, I find myself sort of like my neighbors fence.

The actual fence of my actual real life neighbor

I’m not sure how the conversation went, but it was most likely something like this:

You either have to cut down that tree or you can’t put the fence there.

I don’t want to cut down the tree.

Then you can’t build the fence there.

Well, what if we just put the fence around the tree?

Yup. That would work. It won’t look perfect. It may not be what you envisioned. But you’ll still have a sturdy fence. So if you’re OK with it not exactly meeting your expectations, we can make it work.

I have no evidence that this was the actual conversation but you get the idea.

So where are you? Are you getting a curve ball thrown at you? Or maybe you’re getting a lot of them – sort of like those ball machines they used to use on us in tennis class. And they’re coming fast and furious and you’re having a hard time dodging them all.

Well, maybe it’s time to figure out how to make the fence work even if it’s got a tree growing through the middle of it. Yes, I know, I’m mixing metaphors like crazy here. Somewhere a literary genius just rolled over in her grave. I don’t care. I’m feeling all metaphor mixy today.

So let’s get up and figure it out. God’s got a plan with our name on it and at the end, when we really CAN sing that great Broadway song, we can stand strong and say that we make a lot of mistakes but we kept going. And we’re still here.