Yesterday was one of those days…chaotically full.

It was the last “Advanced Communication Skills” class with my class of Occupational Therapy students and I figger they don’t get much fun in their lives…actually, they really don’t get any time at all to have fun…so as a closing activity we played this game called “Bite the Bag” where we all take a turn leaning over to grab a paper bag off the floor with our teeth, with nothing but your feet allowed to touch the ground.

When you’ve “bit the bag”, you rip off the part of the bag where your teeth touched…the bag gets gradually shorter and the game gets harder.  We use it as a metaphor for therapy…but have a whole lotta laughs in the process.  For a bunch of stressed out Master’s students, playing a stupid party game first thing in the morning is pretty darn fun…no alcohol required.

We debriefed about their experience in learning counselling skills…profound and rewarding for me as I heard of incredibly professional and personal growth…a great, holy fun to watch students recognize and celebrate how school changes them and their relationships, and their ability to be effective future clinicians. I get to teach the good stuff!

Then off to the office to have a fun lunch meeting with Melanie, my office manager–good times with good work getting done–and dashing home for some productive business calls.  Then off to spend the rest of the day with a Junior Tribe Member driving he and his good buddy to an out of town sporting event…with a stop for a casual supper along the way.

Very full, and very fun…if folks ask me about my day they might see to to be simply full of good richness.

But you wouldn’t have seen:

-that the tea time I had with friends at a coffee shop while we were waiting for that JTM’s game to start was to tearfully listen–their hearts are breaking over a family crisis.  They entrusted me to hold their pain yesterday

-that I heard news that a good friend’s mother passed away

-that I heard the heartbreak of another friend in tears over the news of this death…realizing her parents are not far off from this end of life stage

-my conversation with one of our therapists who is dealing with a death in her family…making arrangements to have her sessions handled…and hearing her tears as she prepares to travel go say “good-bye”

-me checking to make sure that the flowers were successfully sent to the funeral for my out-of-town aunt’s funeral–I hadn’t seen her in years, but her death hits close to home for those I care about

It had me go to sleep last night contemplating how to hold it all:

…the laughter and joy and excitement with knowing that so many hurt that I care about and

…lots of tears from multiple friends sharing their heartache…used up the kleenex packet I carry in my purse.

That’s a challenge in life…is to figure out how to remember a day like yesterday:

Will I remember the heartache and pain and disappointments and stressors (easy enough to do)

OR

Will I remember the joy and the laughter and fun and the friendship and the “light bulb moments” and the growth (it’s tempting to remember it that way)
I choose “both“.

I don’t want to live an “either/or” life, which a day with such sharp contrasts as yesterday tempted me to do.

My brain longs to remember simply…which means it’s tempted to record the day as an either/or memory. You know what I’m talking about, we like to say, “This was a good day” or “This was a bad day“.

I’m not the only one…You too, right?

Choosing to remember the day yesterday as one only filed in the “joy” part of my memory sets me up to deny the sadness and not “be there” for those I care about, to live in a “la-la” land that isn’t meaningfully connected reality, and not prepared to deal with life.

Choosing to remember only the loss, and the many sad friends who crossed my path yesterday and file it in the “rotten horrible terrible no good very bad” day file doesn’t let me celebrate the fun I had with students, friends, and family.  I laughed a lot yesterday.  I hit an amazing run down the main drag downtown in the middle of rush hour of no red lights…it was a small but victorious moment that was fun.

To only focus on the sadness, means that my emotional tank has a huge drain without the deliciousness of the filling that happens when I remember the great moments of my day.

I choose “both/and” living…I will often not hit the mark, and may at times be too “Pollyanna” or too “Eeyore”…but I choose to live fully in all of life, wholeheartedly relishing in the joy, and patiently sitting in the pain.

So I choose to remember the pain of the day

and

the joy of the day

I make it sound easy, don’t I…it so isn’t. 

I may forget and try to remember it only one way or the other…but it certainly is worthwhile to live wholeheartedly.

It’s a messy, beautiful…