starve the emptiness and feed the hunger

A year ago, something happened to me that I didn’t see coming. I had spent the previous several months trying to convince myself that I felt a certain way, even though I didn’t. I did this out of self-preservation, not out of malice. I felt like that was the only way I could protect myself and get on with things. Unfortunately, at that point in my life I was awfully good at fooling myself. Too good. I turned an unfortunate situation into one of those “saying something you’re going to regret” situations. And for that - better late than never - I’m sorry. Maybe I felt like you deserved it at the time, or maybe I felt like I was balancing the scales. In any case, I didn’t intend to be cruel.

What situations like this teach me is that life goes on. The hurt that is so sharp and so intense that you feel completely overwhelmed will eventually fade. The guilt passes, as does the grieving. And while time may not heal all wounds, it will eventually give enough perspective to let you see that they are not mortal wounds, and they never were. For every hurt, you develop a scar that is stronger than the skin was - even when you thought your skin was impermeable. Nihil sub sole novum, loosely translated, means that “any action, in the fullness of time, sinks to nothingness.”* I don’t know that I agree with this entirely - but at its core, that’s what I’m talking about here.

Here is another example.

As most of you know, I teach at a theatre for children. And as anyone who works with children knows, tragedy does not prey merely on the old and wise. A few nights ago, one of the kids who was acting in a summer play here simply died in his sleep. No illness, no warning, no obvious answer as to why it had happened at all. This boy was in rehearsals for a show that was supposed to open next weekend, and had been rehearsing with his castmates for several weeks. He had been taking classes here his entire life, and the news of his unexpected passing sent shockwaves through the community here. Kids have had classes with him, teachers have taught him, tech people remember him from other summer season shows. For my part, I could not even fathom what it must be like for the kids in his show. You all remember how inexplicably close you get to people at summer camp as a kid. Maybe you’ve only known them a few days, but for some reason you feel like you’ve been friends your entire lives. On top of that, add on the connection and camaraderie you have with cast members. And then suddenly, for no reason, delete one of those presences from the equation right before opening night. How do you react? How do you grieve for a friendly face who is there one day and not there the next? I lost my first close friend when I was 14, and the months following that morning are a complete blur to me, even now. I felt for the kids in this cast - more so even than I did for his mother. I felt like they would be shattered … and I was wrong.

Life goes on. When someone dies, when you lose something precious, when you feel like you’ve made all the wrong decisions and have left yourself with nowhere to turn. When I walked past the theatre today, there were those kids - rehearsing outside, where all the world could see. Making their speeches and singing their songs and giggling together and getting on with their lives. Realizing, perhaps, how strong they have the potential to be.

* excerpted from The Secret History, by Donna Tartt