By Dave Markwell
“Thanks for being patient with him. He carried a lot of baggage and some of it was heavy, but hard to let go of. He always loved well – just didn’t always include himself. He lost things that mattered to him and they took things. His soft, big heart was slow to heal and/or find the lessons. Thank you for waiting for him. He’s been waiting for you, too.”
– me to me
A journal I was working on a short time ago had a prompt to “Write a letter to your future self.” Above was my entry.
This was a public comment on my recent column honoring “our people.” My column was a pretty innocuous, and sometimes rather sweet, description of some nice days with nice people who made them so. I felt happy and grateful and loving writing it. It wasn’t a social or political commentary. It was simply human, or at least my version of it. It wasn’t meant to be controversial or inspire anything but good feelings, so I was surprised that my words could touch someone this way.
I shared my journal entry to provide some contrast here, not to invalidate the comment on my post, but to provide a broader and maybe more complete story- a deeper view of the complexities of a life, my life, to illustrate that life holds many things, some of them hard, for everyone. No one is spared from loss or hurt or fear or suffering. This may be the most universal thing we share. But, joy and love and some appreciation for a beautiful day feeling these things is pretty universal, too. Life can be messy, but it can be pretty nice, too.
Now, I didn’t and don’t take the comment personally. I’ve been writing for a while, quite publicly. As such, I’m fairly immune to peculiar comments on my words, so I wasn’t too bothered by the recent one. It didn’t feel mean. The “winky face” might imply some jest or some lightness. Maybe it was a reminder of my privilege or advantages or the fact that some other people have harder lives. I accept these things as true. I feel lucky for many things.
The thing that did bother me a bit were the assumptions. Without knowing me or my story, the commenter seemed to assume that my life was easy or without pain or struggle or fear. And this might be an easy assumption to make. It also misses things. Assumptions usually do. These missed things are often our shared humanity- these common threads of loss and confusions and sadness and big or little hurts. We all suffer them. Remembering this might open us to some empathy and softness or forgiveness. It might be what saves us. We have more in common than we don’t. I believe this.
Stripped down to our bare hearts and bones, we all share hopes and loves and fears and tears and dreams. We know how they feel. And this feeling is our most common ground. Independent of any external garnish like skin or cool hair or fancy shoes, we all lie down at night wondering and worrying and thinking and feeling and praying for good answers and maybe some forgiveness for our bad ones. I think we have this in common. And it’s hard for everyone.
But, in the morning, with the red sun rising over the shadows of mountains, we gather our hopes and begin a new day. This can be hard, too. Hope can be hard. But I’ve seen too much evidence of man’s goodness and strength and creativity to not believe that this is universal, too. Life can be hard and beautiful at the same time. I think this is a good thing to believe and remember and not miss.
Dave Markwell is a life-long Des Moines liver and lover. Former owner of Waterland CrossFit and the Waterland Arcade, Dave uses his unique story-telling voice to help small businesses tell a better story, and his love for people to help folks live bigger and better lives. For more info, check out his website: wordsbydave.net
