Resilience

You trip over a fallen log and gash open your leg on a spiky branch. And by “you” I mean me. And the wound is cleaned and stitched, and you heal. You’ll have a scar but big deal. The body is resilient. The body knows what to do. Would you have healed faster when you were younger? Yes. It is true. The older we are, the slower we heal. Physically.

Or you go for a long run or a hard hike. And by “you” I mean me. And maybe the next morning you feel it. So you’ll be a little sore. Big deal. The body is resilient. The body knows what to do. Would you have recovered faster when you were younger. Yes, it is true. The older we are, the longer it takes to bounce back.

But there is a kind of recovery that grows stronger with age, and it is more important than physical mending. It is emotional resilience. It is the ability to cope with and respond to setbacks and challenges, to unwelcome changes, to losses. To, you know, Life with a capital L.

When I was thirteen, Myles Cooley, my first boyfriend, my first love, the first boy I kissed, dumped me. I was devastated in a way I still remember. My heart ached. I cried. Every song on the radio was about love. So I cried some more. At that age, I had zero tools in my emotional resilience toolbox. I thought about him for years, yes years, afterward. I did not give my heart away (as a teen girl would put it) until I met my college boyfriend five years later.

But time and circumstance are good teachers. You learn. And by “you” I mean me. You develop problem-solving skills. You acquire coping strategies. You learn how to manage your emotions. You nurture what psychologists call an internal locus of control, that powerful belief that your actions can affect the outcome of events. This imbues you with a sense of confidence and control. You learn that you are a survivor.

You didn’t know any of this when you were thirteen.

Now you do.

And, although there is toughness that comes from this learning, there is also buoyancy.

Photo (mine): Madrone bark, Lithia park, Ashland