Sorrow digs the well that can contain your joy

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How do we ever know if we are doing the right thing?

As a teenager, I used to think you could never take the wrong path, that every road led to more learning, to something different. There wasn’t anything intrinsically right or wrong about any decision. This is a simplified view of the world, akin to someone saying, “I’m not afraid to die.”

Then I learned that you could still make choices that hurt and damaged you (or others); choices that sucked just enough life out of you that you felt dead, but worse because the hurt wouldn’t stop.

The real question is not, “Are you afraid to die,” or, “Are there any wrong choices.” The real question is, “Can you handle the consequences of your actions, intended or not?” It’s great if you’re not afraid of death, but you might still have to live with pain.

I have lived with a lot of pain, and often dealt with it in desperate or destructive ways. I have been hurt, and I have hurt people. I carry scars and wear the consequences.

But these dark moments have helped to shape me and who I am. And I can accept that. And I can learn from it. And I can strive to do better, as long as I realize that right now, at this very moment, I am enough. This is okay for right now. I am ok.

Sorrow digs the well that can contain your joy. That might explain why, as you get older, joyful moments make you cry.

And I have so many feels! I can tear up at the slightest hint of human compassion.

One memory, in particular, brings the waterworks every time—my daughter is maybe five years old, floating beside me on a spinning carnival swing on Chicago’s Navy Pier. We are whipping through the air, high above the crowds. She lets go of her cross-bar, spreading her arms out like an airplane. “I’m flying, Daddy!” she says, “I’m flying!”

I was so scared she might fall. But that look on her face, of feeling so happy and free, that moment was one of the happiest I’ve ever felt. [Here come the tears, I told you this would happen!]

This combination of terror and joy is how I look at the coming teenage years. She is fourteen next month, going on twenty-one as the joke says. I am so concerned that she’s going to make some wrong decisions. And no doubt she will.

But as much as it pains me to watch someone dig their own well, I know we’ll be sharing a fount of joy somewhere down the line—and laughing through our tears.