Last month I wrote about the small joys in life that can still be found, despite the chaos and turmoil that seem to be increasing all around us.
I meant every word of that blog post. I also felt like I was sinking deeper into quicksand with every step I took.
“Don’t wish your life away.”
My mom used to tell me this quite frequently—when I was expressing my desire to be done with high school or college, or when I was looking forward to the end of summer so I could quit my job at the swimming pool and return to school.
I was walking at the lake with a friend.
I’ve known her for years. I know some of the more heart-wrenching parts of her story, though not every daily struggle.
At some point in our conversation, menopause came up. I expressed to her that when I entered this season of life at 41, a full 10 years earlier than the average woman, I felt more alone than at any other time in my life.
Oh, friends. The weight of the world just keeps on getting heavier, doesn’t it? I don’t have to make a list—you know what’s going on. Across the ocean, across state lines, across town, maybe even across your own living room.
And yet, can we also agree that joy can still be found? In quiet conversations, quiet walks, quiet moments outside? In our kids’ rippling laughter, the steady beat of a new favorite song, perhaps even in the overwhelming drone of cicadas at dusk (a sound that brings me back to childhood like nothing else)?
Tricia Lott Williford can write about any topic in a book, and I know I will love it and learn from it.
Her first book, And Life Comes Back: A Wife’s Story of Love, Loss, and Hope Reclaimed, is one of my all-time favorite memoirs. Her fourth— Just. You. Wait.: Patience, Contentment, and Hope for the Everyday—met me right where I was when it was published two years ago.
Your story matters.
I Googled this phrase recently and got 627 million results. It’s so common, it’s almost cliché.
It’s also true, though.