The Strange Silver Lining Of Everything Going Wrong At Once

There is a sublime comfort when we find the sun setting on the world all at once.

At last, the sun is not just setting on us alone.

There’s a silver lining to the storms we go through, especially when we weather them together.

There is a kind of freedom in the togetherness.

There is a sort of liberation.

It is no longer that any one of us is failing on our own, it is no longer that we do or don’t measure up to who is beside us.

Just for a moment, we do not have to worry about whether or not we are doing enough. We do not have to think about whether or not we were invited to the right party and whether or not we have the right outfit to wear. We do not have to run in circles trying to keep up with a life we didn’t want anyway.

Just for a moment, we do not need to worry about the future, because we just need to focus on getting through today.

Just for a moment, we have permission to let go, we have permission to stay in, and in fact, the most helpful thing most of us can do is to lean into the stillness, the quiet, the waiting.

We have been leveled and we have been equalized.

We are all united against a common enemy, and there is relief in that.

There is relief in that we have permission now.

Permission to cry, to feel, to be devastated. We also have permission to breathe, to rest, to remember.

We are, in a strange way, freed from the rat race that existed before, and maybe we don’t need to go back to it.

When the first thing goes wrong, you cry. When the second thing goes wrong, you get angry. When the third thing goes wrong, you throw your hands up and start laughing.

This is not because our plans haven’t been thwarted.

This is not because our circumstances aren’t dangerous and real.

This is not because this is a laughing matter.

This is because at a certain point, all we can do is let go, and see the humor in it all. The humor in our plans, our egos. The humor in our certainty, our presumed infallibility. The humor in how naive we can be.

This is our silver lining.

This is where we will find hope and plant faith.

This is where we will slowly, and gradually, recover.

The world breaks us all — at some point, in some way.

Some of us become stronger where we were once wounded.

Maybe that is the point.