I was thumbing through some photos this morning—older, pre-digital photos—looking for a picture I haven't found yet. I came across this one, though:
That's Nathan, barely six months old, with my dad, in Hobble Creek canyon. Kelly's Grove to be exact. I've forgotten the family function we had that picnic in the canyon for. Father's Day? My mom's birthday? Just because? I don't remember.
What I do remember is being the woman who took that photo. Twenty something. Surrounded with little kids. A baby in my home who I could scoop up and kiss, rock and nurse and snuggle and smell, whenever I wanted. Having my dad around to talk to, even when his hour-long phone calls secretly made me a little bit crazy. Secure—absolutely, stupidly secure—in my faith in the future. Not even hopeful, really, but certain that life would give me exactly what I wanted. I thought that because the desires of my heart were righteous ones, I would be able to achieve them.
I know we're supposed to feel grateful for the knowledge life brings us. I know that the struggles we experience make us wiser, and that that wisdom is supposed to be good. Wisdom is supposed to make up for the anxiety, disappointment, and heartache. The struggles are supposed to be valuable because somehow they transform us into better people.
And yes: I do know much more than I did the summer day I took that photo of my dad and my Nathan. I've had experiences I never imagined I would have, and joyful, unexpected surprises along the way. I have also struggled, and I have come out of the dark times with more wisdom. But I don't know if the wisdom has made me a better person. It has hollowed me out. I have become jaded and brittle along the edges, quick to answer any real question with sarcasm. Quicker to push life away, to pull into myself, to not reach out.
What I know now that I didn't before is that trying to do the right things, to have faith and hope, to make sacrifices, isn't a pathway to what you desire from your life. Sometimes you can do everything as right as you possibly can but you still are going to be left wanting what you wanted in the beginning—and you'll keep wanting it even when you can't have it anymore. And I didn't know that my great struggle would be balancing all those hopes I had—the things I didn't even question I would be able to have—with the reality of what I would be given instead.
Part of me wants to think that I was stupid for ever being as hopeful as I was, before. But what I sometimes wish is that life would have taught me something different. That I could have learned that hope was enough. Or that I would have hoped for the right things. Or that I had known how to make the transformation—better person by way of struggles—work for me. More than anything, right at this moment, I wish I could be the person I was that day, behind the lens. I wish I could set my camera down on the picnic table, sit down next to my dad—my rotund, never-afraid-of-an-off-color-joke, talkative dad—and laugh over Nathan's chubby body together. Tell him I love him and know that he understood instead of flinging the words down a dark well, hoping he catches them.
I wish I could put my knowledge down and not have to pick it up again. Just for today. I wish I could feel like I used to: certain that life would fulfill my hopes, simply because they were good, honest ones. I wish I knew how to return to that feeling I had, before my life turned itself upside down and shook me out here, where I have landed with experiences I had no idea I would need to have. Even though, as I write that, I am filled with knowing that, even if I couldforget what I have learned, I couldn't, because along with it came those unexpected joys—even though I know that, I still find myself weeping, full of longing. Wishing I could go back to my before self, shallow and clueless, if only to keep part of that hopeful surety to bring back with me, a bright feather to keep with my dark stones.
Just to return to myself a little bit of the hope I used to fly with. Before.