Bitter/ Sweet

Slathering moisturizer on my face this morning, I was struck by the irony of it. Throughout my adolescence and teens and into my twenties, I labored day and night to remove moisture (as in: oil) from this face. I stared in the mirror, angsted over every pore, panicked over break-outs, scoured the pages of Seventeen magazine for the best creams and cover-ups that promised to dry out my skin. And now it’s all about putting that oil back in.

The yin and yang of it. And how life—not just skin– is all about that.

You are a fifteen-year-old know-it-all (speaking for myself) who learns, over time, how very little she knows.

You are drawn to drama. Then you understand the power and poignance of understatement.

You think you are the only one to whom this (fill in the blank for “this”) has ever happened. And then you find you are part of a silent sisterhood.

You think it’s always going to be this way. And then it isn’t.

You spend years, decades, working your way into the “comfort zone” and then realize that the dis-comfort zone is where real growth happens.

You can’t wait to get away. And then you can’t wait to come home.

You acquire and collect and save and store. And then all you want to do is give away and declutter.

You think joy and sorrow are opposites. Then you read Joseph Campbell’s entreaty to “participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world.” And, boom.

You learn to love and then you learn to let go.

You think loss is the end. You come to realize it is the beginning.

Recommended reading: Bitter-sweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole.