Fortitude

Being vulnerable doesn't ever seem to get easier but does indeed become more of a necessity for me. The title Poetry Prose, Perspective and Practice,  does include the word practice, so this will continue to be my practice of writing about what may be vulnerable and at the same time something meaningful enough to me that I feel the need to share. 

I have been reading "Pluck",  the memoir of Donna Morrissey, a Newfoundland novelist.  In her book, she describes the adversity she and her family faced with a fortitude that was instilled in her as a virtue by both of her parents during her younger years. It becomes clear that fortitude is not enough to navigate her circumstances, and the story shares the heart of what brings her through it.   I had been thinking a lot about her challenges and being overwhelmed with how much she and her family had to deal with in their life.  If fortitude is courage in the face of adversity, they were clearly brimming with it.  It left me questioning how we all continue to have the strength of mind and the will needed to endure and overcome so many of life's challenges as none of us escape them.

The same week I was nearing the end of this novel, I had a conversation with a colleague and friend where we were sharing concern for the numerous difficulties people are facing right now.  I  shared with him my questioning if others were feeling the responsibility of care that we were consumed with.  It was a lengthy conversation and I appreciated his time and insight. One thing that stuck with me was that he said, "but your ok with the hard. I mean dealing with the hard feelings. Most people are using distractions or numbing because they don't want to feel it."

He wouldn't have realized at the time how much I appreciated him seeing this in me as I haven't always been the person who welcomed the hard. I think, like most of us I was always looking to be comfortably uncomfortable.  I have a picture on my fridge which is now part of this post. The picture is there to remind me of a pivotal moment of change in my life. It is a snapshot of myself and my two daughters on a sled in our front yard. The picture is in black and white and represents a time shortly after this photo when the color left my world for a while. I began seeing differences in the development of my two daughters and was sure that my youngest needed an autism diagnosis.  I chased this diagnosis for the next year and a half and the "chase" continued for many years after the diagnosis as well.   I became hypervigilant about everything concerning her care and therapy.  I moved through my days on a mission to bring every possible solution to her challenges. This extended to how I moved through my personal care and relationships as well.  Always moving, fixing, helping, staying one step ahead to avert every crisis big or small.  I suddenly felt the most aloneness I had ever experienced and the biggest weight of responsibility, I assumed one could feel.  Shame and guilt were huge in those days.  Shame for wishing things could be different for my little family,  guilt for not being able to change the subsequent effect all of this would have on my partner and my daughters, and mostly for the uncertainty of how my daughter would navigate a world not made for her.  It was the beginning of my consistent answers of "I'm fine and It's good",  to the questions of concern from friends and relatives. Whether it was real or imagined, I acknowledged the pity and toxic positivity of well-meaning people we encountered, along with a barrage of good-intentioned advice and snippets of google research offered by some of those closest to me. This, I realized aided my construction of the biggest wall I could muster to keep at bay the feeling of being misunderstood and allowing myself to be vulnerable with people who didn't share my experience.  I had grown up in a generation of women that kept their family stories to themselves,  where being vulnerable meant you were weak or flawed in some way.   Everyone thinking they should be able to handle everything on their own and find great pride in doing so.  When I finally found my way through the grief that was presenting in so many other ways, I was able to be present with where I found myself.  There eventually was the realization that if I kept running, I would never be able to find peace of mind.   When I got still finally, I realized that by allowing all of my feelings to be what they were, as well as my reality, the emotions would move through me but  I would not become them. My life was so full of color and my hard was what would make me see this.   It all seems like a lifetime ago and I am now trying to build bridges instead of walls and investing in what matters most.  I think now, I  spend a lot of time with the hard feelings but   I know that having courage does not mean  I  have to try to balance on one foot with my leg in the air for the entirety of my life, as eloquently spoken by Elizabeth Gilbert and realizing this has made room for a whole lot more joy and appreciation for my life.

I share this with you as I would a breath practice from my yoga class. Urging you to breath in saying to yourself, "let" which means to allow the feelings and thoughts to come and to breathe out,  saying to yourself "go" and with that visualizing the release of what comes.  I would share this breath practice because it may help you as it has me.  I am sharing my stories in the same way.  My story is not yours, my hard is just that, my hard, and yours is your hard, and hard will always be part of the human experience but there may be something in our differing stories for each other.   I believe that what we have to offer one another is our lived experiences, our stories. This is really one of the most significant things we have to give.

So coming back to fortitude, its definition, and relevance to our stories.  Maybe fortitude is not just the courage to handle adversity and pain but the courage to ask hard questions, sit with hard feelings, share difficult emotions and conversations that may help us move through adversity and grow from it.  Maybe fortitude is allowing, accepting, and staying present with emotion, resting, and reflecting on experience.  Maybe having fortitude is being brave enough to share your story as did Donna Morrissey.