Resilience: “the capacity to withstand or to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness“

That’s a word that came up a few times this week. Maybe the universe is trying to give me, or someone, a hint. Resilience, difficulties, recover. Yeah. That seems appropriate. First come the difficulties. Eventually, there’s a recovery. And the two are bridged by resilience.

“If you’re going through hell, keep going” – Winston Churchill

I am in a personal recovery. I miss my home, the only house I’ve ever considered ‘home’, but selling it has swung me into a recovery mode. Being poor really is unhealthy. Ah, ‘was’ unhealthy. I lost my view, but I also rid myself of debt. The immediate feeling was loss. A layer of responsibility released as I could no longer be responsible for a house that required more care than I could deliver. Then, after the first few months of bills sunk in, I felt another layer lift as the monthly obligations dramatically dropped. I’ve been in my new old big tiny house (MyTinyExperiment.com) for over nine months. Layers hidden by layers re being released. Whew.

Whew and weird. Change carries its own stresses, even good change. Over a decade of financial hardship (#massiveunderstatement) will take more than a few weeks or months to unravel. I just booked a week-long vacation, and feel incredibly guilty and irresponsible – and take that as an even greater incentive to get away. The joke is that it isn’t a week, it’s only five days; and getting away is to a retreat that is only a fifteen-minute drive away. Baby steps. 

Timid? Sure. Financial hardships can come with cautions that are necessities. Especially in today’s society of ads for luxuries bought on credit, it is easy to be lured into spending more money than a person has. Since selling my home, my expenses are lower and my investments are higher. I can afford it. My logical brain knows that. My fearful brain hopes it is possible.

Patience. I tell myself. You’ve got this. I tell myself.

The word ‘resilience’ came back into my vocabulary within the last few weeks. It wasn’t because of finance. It was because of health. 

Relax. I will spare you the old-man details of aches and pains, but I will share a bit of the story of resilience. 

Circa 2009 (remember those financial upsets?), I had some upsetting conversations (another #massiveunderstatement) with some doctors. After that, I felt weak, fragile, and wasted – and not in a good way. My response? If things are going to be that bad, and if health care is going to cost that much, I might as well take a vacation and walk across Scotland, or something like that. If the core of my issues was stress, then maybe a less-stressful environment and experience would be good for my health. I didn’t intend to write a book about it, but one day and one moment of revelation convinced me to write the book: Walking Thinking Drinking Across Scotland.

I didn’t die, despite the feeling I had after working with the doctors.

That was a three-week trip. I’m working myself back up to that level of courage.

Evidently, I was resilient enough to survive. 

Recently, I had another set of worrisome doctors’ visits. Groan. Moan. That kicked off a several-day response that felt equally unhealthy. And it led to another revelation. 

From 2009 to now has been an epic series of difficulties that I have somehow survived. Friends helped. (#massiveunderstatement) Some friends accidentally didn’t, but that’s because knowing which advice and which word is appropriate is a tough choice.

Hey. Wait. I survived that. Long-term readers know that I’ve chronicled a string of those difficulties on this blog. (Thanks for being there.) I survived.

I survived. 

I have resilience, evidently.

My stress level is high, but falling. My learned defenses are falling, but cautiously. My moments of being contented feel foreign, but are welcome. I guess I’ve been resilient. Maybe those doctors’ concerns were warranted because they have to act on the side of caution, but there was evidently something positive countering them and helping me steer through the morass of worry.

One of my simple joys is going dancing, or at least to hear music, at the local cidery (FinnRiver) almost every Friday afternoon. My doctors caution against alcohol and sugar, hence, no cider for me, but I have tea (Kettle Pot Cup). My favorite tea? Resilience. There’s that word again.

And then, there’s the news. Pick your station. Pick your feed. Pick your social media platform. The news is unpleasant (#massiveunderstatement). 

It would be nice to say that we’ll get through this and everything will return to normal, again. Unfortunately, we haven’t had a healthy, sustainable normal in human history since, what, maybe the advent of growing crops. Going back isn’t an option. Going back is a fantasy, and one that only a few can truly share. 

Sadly, I think we’ve lost the luxury of time to counter the environment we’ve created. Climate, economies, politics, injustices are all damaged. Repair may not suffice. We may have to re-evolve, at least culturally.

However we proceed, those who survive will exercise or at least learn resilience.

Resilience is noble, honorable, an achievement. Resilience is not necessarily attractive. Someone who has been required to practice resilience can look like a firefighter walking out of a disaster of a home. Smudged and smelly. Possibly bruised. Ready for a change of clothes. But alive. Resilient.

For now, resilience may mean being open to new kinds of changes, to a lack of stability, and to sharing and asking for help within a community, possibly a new one.

I needed a day off. I didn’t plan it, but my schedule was clear of commitments. The weather was just right for enjoying the local ocean view, but from the comfort of my car. Blue skies are great, but wind and hypothermia aren’t.

Seagulls happen. (Birders tell me there’s a better term for the bird. Ask them for specifics.) I drove to a fort turned park, Fort Worden. I was comfy. Dressed warm. A cup of tea in the cup holder. A book (Good Omens) if I wanted to distract myself. Nature provided a distraction. A seagull landed on the fence, looked at me, hopped onto the hood of my Jeep, and stared at me. This is odd. Then it started pecking at the clean windshield. Is it going to break through? Bah! Tap. Tap. Tap. Bizarre. 

Hey, universe. Are you trying to send me a sign? The bird took a nap. I took a longer break. Eventually, I drove away because it was lunch time. The bird flew off.

When I got home, I realized I was still curious about the universe and signs. Hello, Google. What’s seagull a spirit guide for? Resilience. You’ve got to be kidding. Or, if nothing else, I’ve got to be grinning. 

“If you’re going through hell, keep going” – Winston Churchill