A friend posted the meme below.

I feel her pain.

Our world feels her pain.

Every year, as the earth finishes another orbit around the sun, I reflect on what’s happened, lessons learned, and hopes for the coming year. (Usually, these ponderings end up in a Christmas letter that arrives in the mailboxes of friends and family some time between Valentine’s Day and Independence Day . . .)

This year, I’m more in the mode of kicking the last year to the curb with a hearty Good Riddance.

Insurrection, new virus variants, wildfires, floods, tornadoes. Increased gun violence. Violence on planes and in restaurants and stores. Death threats issued to school board members. A Congressman posting an anime video showing him murdering his colleague and the president of the United States (and while it’s true that he was subsequently censured, consider the fact that 207 representatives voted against censure).

What’s not to love about a fresh start,
a new chance to become better versions of ourselves?

And those are just the world’s hurts. Our family lost someone recently, someone young, someone who should have had decades to make mistakes, and decades of New Years Days to begin again with a clean slate. And just as I was trying to regain equilibrium, I received the news that a dear friend had passed away.

I sit with those traumas, and absorb them.

After a while that feels like a sliver of eternity, a timeless void of grief, a different feeling begins to arise. Faint, at first, then growing, like the strains of a distant orchestra sidling up to a crescendo. It’s been so conspicuously absent for so long, I don’t recognize it immediately.

Bubbling up from some deep pool within me,
irrepressible, unquenchable:
Joy.

I check the headlines—yes, still horrific. Our family’s losses—still here, aching absences.

How could I feel joy in the midst of all this?

Maybe a better question is how could I continue without joy?

Life sucks, sometimes. There is physical pain, emotional pain, loss, want, need, loneliness. I accept that I will have those experiences, so why not accept the unsucky feelings, as well?

A favorite poem includes these words:

Sorrow everywhere. Slaughter everywhere. . . .

We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure,
but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have
the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless
furnace of this world.

“A Brief for the Defense” by Jack Gilbert

 What, then—should I ignore tragedy and injustice? Not a chance. Refuse to grieve? Same response. But this is not a multiple choice question with only one answer. I can experience the whole miserable, marvelous, mystical panoply of life as it unfurls.

 Another favorite quote:

“I’m not an optimist, I’m a possible-ist.
Everything is possible, we just have to make it happen.”

Frances Moore Lappé, author of Diet for a Small Planet, in a 10/11/2021 NPR Here and Now interview.

 So this is where I land, on this the first new day of the new year: I feel sad, and I feel joyful, and I feel hopeful. 2022 will no doubt bring obstacles, frustrations, and grief; I will do my best to be open to moments of joy, as well. Just as importantly, I will practice possible-ism, and try to midwife joy, in my own life, and in the lives of those around me.

Postscript: Other thoughtful ponderings for 2022 can be found from friends Iris Graville and Johan Maurer

Images by Khamkéo Vilaysing @mahkeo (geyser with a rainbow); Jonny Gios @supergios (fountain)