Seeking Grace
A couple of months ago I received a text from a friend asking if I was “Ok”. A loaded question indeed. In her magical, psychic ability to read between the lines on social media posts, she knew that I’d been struggling with life and because she’s kind and caring, she reached out.
Here’s the interesting thing: this friend and I haven’t seen each other in person since we graduated high school in 1990. Furthermore, we weren’t really even friends during that time. We knew each other of course, but did not socialize in the same circles. Yet, somehow over the years, thanks to the connective forces of social media, we’ve actually become friends and have found that we have so much in common as women and parents of boys, trying to navigate menopause while raising teens. (I have so much to say about that in future posts.)
Within this bubbling soup of mid-life we are juggling so much, using so many tools and tricks just to get to the end of our day when we can look in the mirror and say to ourselves, “I tried my best today and tomorrow I will try again.” Being a human can be a really hard job and I think we all are in need of some grace.
As I wrote in my introduction to Substack, my intentions with this journaling experiment is to process, untangle and work through the massive shifts happening at this point in my life and to share in an authentic way that hopefully fosters connection and growth. I use my high school acquaintance-turned adult friend as an example of the possibilities that can come from this type of online sharing and the genuine friendships that develop through our words and photos.
Thanks for being here.
From time to time, I’ll use my artwork as a visual companion to my written thoughts. This was a textile piece that I made for my local art museum’s annual benefit earlier this year, titled “Grace’s Garden”. I find it ironic that the medium of tying tiny knots with thread and yarn allow my overwhelmed brain to untie it’s own knots.
