Navigating Disappointment

“The best laid plans of mouse and men often go awry”. Now it’s pretty obvious what Robert Burns meant when he wrote those words, but they never rang more true for me than they have this past week. I have had a a solid week of big disappointments including a misunderstanding with a loved one that took a turn, a offer on a home that wasn’t accepted, and the realization that I have been misdiagnosed and have been being treated incorrectly for the past year. It has been a lot to take in over the past 7 days. By the end of the week I was drained emotionally and physically. By the time Friday rolled around I felt pretty done with it all, but the week wasn’t over and neither were the disappointments. I choose to isolate. I cancelled plans Friday night and spent the night on my couch. I watched a movie and licked my wounds. I thought this is ok I have become an expert in disappointment what’s a few more. The thought that there is little in your life that will not end in disappoint is so self defeating though. Most days I am more upbeat about the adventures ahead and undiscovered stories, but yesterday was not one of those days.

What do you do to keep your spirits buoyed when life brings you down? How do you center yourself and move forward through the bullshit minutia life throws at you? Do you meditate, run, create, or escape into nature? Do you drink, do drugs, or overeat in an attempt to bury the feelings? Do you cocoon yourself from, or surround yourself with others? I have attempted most of the above methods throughout my life, but if I have to choose the most effective means personally it would be running, creating, and escaping into nature. All have brought me peace of mind so I can more clearly process my disappointments. True it’s not always enough. There is no one size fits all approach to navigating disappointment. You don’t necessarily have more or less based on wealth, career, or family. It varies for all of us, we just get to decide how to move through it. Some people don’t. They allow it to hold them back with negativity and reluctance. I have been that person to. Unfortunately I don’t come to you with answers of how to get through this. I think you just keep going no matter what. You seek guidance from those around you, you ask for help when needed, you cry if needed but then you keep going.

Today my sister is coming over to help knock some projects off my to do list. Tomorrow I go back to work. This week I will proactively pick up disks of imaging done locally, drive them into Boston myself, and place them in the hands of a doctor who will hopefully unravel the mystery of my misdiagnosed disease. That’s all you can do to get through the disappointment, just keep going. There is never permanence to a situation that can not change in a moment. Hope, happiness, disappointment, grief, sadness, and joy- it’s all fleeting. Like the ocean it may be calm and idyllic one moment, and knock you down and toss you about the next. Sometimes we forget our own strengths and need reminding. I leave you with a poem I first read as a teenager looking for silver linings in dark days.