Well, it’s that day of the year again, at least where I live. Happy Thanksgiving everyone.
I want to keep this brief, because I’m sure you all have better things to do than read my blog, like spending time with family. But hey, if you are one of those unfortunate people who is alone today, just know that someone does care about you, God loves you, and this will get better if you rely on Him.
2020 has been one heck of a year to be glad about anything in, but I do have a list of things to be happy about.
The Oh Hellos dropped two new EPs this year after like 2 years of nothing, that was awesome.
I made some new friends.
I hung out with old friends, got to know them better, and stayed in touch with others.
I have now had a whole year without my abusive father in my life, and while that’s had its ups and downs, I am still grateful for the freedom.
I read some good books, saw some great movies, and discovered some cool shows with my siblings.
I spent more time with my cousins than I ever have.
I survived.
Strangely, with as miserable as I have been, that number 4 makes me think, would I trade all the suffering of this year for another year with my dad in my life, the way it was?
The answer is a resounding NO! and that is pretty telling. I have had times I wanted to die this year, but I wouldn’t trade that for living with him again.
It sounds terrible, doesn’t it, but, I think of it like this: Living with a toxic person is just that, toxic, all the pain I went through because of that that person is at least flushing out that toxin, reintroducing it would defeat the entire point and render my suffering null and void.
We may hate to suffer, but we crave knowing it has a purpose and meaning, and if that is threatened, we sink into much deeper despair. That is one reason Christians and other theists weather suffering better overall, we believe it has a reason.
And I hope that is encouraging for someone, COVID happened, riots struck, Biden won, (which even democrats are not universally happy about, and republicans are furious); and it’s one thing after another. Maybe no one expected anything good to happen this year anyway, people can be real pessimistic.
But the Bible says God sends good times and bad times, He sends rain on the wicked and the just. And He uses all this for His purpose. We cannot stop Him, whether we be a king or a convict or a pauper.
I am glad my fate is not in the hands of my government, it’d be a scary prospect. I am glad it is not in my own hands, I am glad it’s not in the hands of any human being or organization.
You ever notice you can be glad without feeling glad? Gladness is a state of mind. Just like you can be sour on life without feeling particuallry sad.
My dad, who probaly has BPD, would be unhappy even when he felt happy. I’ve been there too. Determined to spoil it by thinking of all that could go worng and if the slightest thing did, his happy vibe would blow away like smoke, and the agner would surgace again. Miseray loves company.
While, even when I feel awful, if I am in a glad state of mine, I will find things to be grateful for. If I truly want to be glad, I can be. C. S. Lewis wrote in The Great Divorce “All those who seek Joy find it.”
I have not felt happy very much this year, but I know that I have been happier this year than I probably was last year. I know that I was happy even when I was depressed and miserable, because, I kept going, and I knew that there were things in life worth holding on for, and I had God’s help to know that, I am sure of that.
When I look back over this year, I couldn’t even tell you how I got through, if I had been told last year what it would be like, I would have said I could never endure something like that, but I did, and my memory doesn’t even serve to tell me an exact moment I became able to bear all this, something just carried me, I think. Even when I felt crushed, I must not really have been standing alone.
I think that goes for you too, whether you believe in God or not, if you are reading this, He has held you up, through this year. So many people have not held on, those who have must have reached for something bigger than themselves, whether they called it God or not.
I hope we are all humbler than we were, this year has really exposed the lie that we can be self sufficient, all of us who were stupid enough to think that found out we were wrong pretty quickly (you remember when you first became so desperate for a hug you’d have hugged a total stranger? When you wanted to talk to someone about anything, even the weather? Haven’t we all had that this year?)
Many of us are mourning the loss of someone we know, or several someones, and I can’t be trite about that, but I do think, maybe we learned to value the people still with us a little more because of that, or to be more compassionate to others in the same boat as us.
Maybe we learned that our opinions are both important, and yet not as important as we thought.
I don’t know what your journey has been, but I know mine has been to realize that without love, without kindness between people, nothing really is worth doing with them. Superficial relationships don’t satisfy when a crisis hits, I need something real.
I hope that we are all becoming less content with the superficial, the fake, the flippant. As we find how unsatisfying it is.
I hope that this encouraged you at least a little to look at this year differently.
But even if you think I’m talking a lot of nonsense, Happy Thanksgiving, wherever you are, and I hope you will have blessings this year far more than you ever thought possible. May “your latter glory be greater than your former” (Haggai 2:9)
Oh well, I need to take it easy for a while anyway while my body heals.
Big news, I finally ended my therapy last week. I started it…what, 7 months ago now? I agreed to myself that I’d go for 6 months, and then see where I was.
It’s not that I think I’m done, in fact, I’ve uncovered way deeper issues and trauma than I thought possible, but my therapist and I weren’t on the same page. We just don’t see healing the same way, and it seemed it was no longer helping, so I will be looking into other forms of help.
For the time being, I’m trying to grasp the fact that I actually was okay with stopping and that I am not crazy for doing it, and trusting myself to make that decision.
Not that I make bad decisions, I just always think I will when it come to taking care of myself.
These past two weeks have been interesting for me.
Do you know why people don’t get healed? There’s a myriad of reasons, I know, but the most common has to be they just don’t believe they will be.
I have had trouble believing in it.
It’s true that healing is step by step for some people, my chiropracter and I discussed it. We both know of people who get healed instantly, mind, body, and soul…but so many who have to walk it out.
I have a friend who did get healed of depression and suicidal thoughts, but had to walk it out.
And I’ve had to walk it out. Literally.
It’s funny how my feet have literally been crooked, and I’ve been unable to walk in straight paths, like the Bible says to do. I have to practice walking a new way now.
My chiropractor also asked me if I visualized walking freely, and being able to just move and not be hindered by this, and come to think of it, my therapist asked me also what I wanted to be like at the end of therapy. I’m not where I wanted to be. But I wasn’t planning to switch therapists, it just worked out that way.
I had a hard time answering both questions. I’ve never walked straight or not had a crooked back, so I can’t imagine moving that way, and a lot of the discomfort of this process is that I move in the same ways, after each adjustment, I move a little differently, but I try to move the old ways and it hurts or nauseates me to do so. (You may know how nauseating cramped muscles in your back and stomach are).
If I manage to stay straight, the strain of it can also be painful, as I’m not used to it.
There are times this journey feels like hell, I won’t lie.
Still… one day, I have to believe it will be worth it.
God is my life coach. He’s never promised this will go away instantly, or that it will be easy… but that it will be done, eventually, and I’ll be okay.
There are days I get afraid that it will never end, and I wonder if I can make it… but I am doing better with that.
“In the end, I’m feeling more and more, there won’t be any end….but I guess when you can’t find an edge, by a map half written, it can feel the end, to have to keep going.”
Here’s what I think though, no matter what you’re going through, you have to be able to picture the end. To see light at the end of the tunnel.
I think people succumb to mental illness because they cease to be able to think of a life without it. Mental illness is a whirlpool of your focus, it just swirls around and around on it, you’re obsessed.
I’ve had reason enough to be lost in that, with physical symptoms constantly. and emotional ones.
But somehow, I feel I am finally a little able to embrace the symptoms because they are a sign something is changing, something is getting better. They suck, but you can endure something if you think it’s for a reason.
I feel less trapped in my home now. Somehow, my attention has been shifted more onto “I must recover” and less to “I’m trapped.” I can no longer afford to be trapped.
What if the door to the cages we’re in as Christians, really is unlocked already? Jesus said He is the Door.
What if all the difficulty getting out of the cage is because we’ve spent so many years walking around the inside of it, measuring our whole world by what we can see through the bars, and we can’t even imagine an entire world out there beyond it.
Can I imagine a life without systemic depression and crooked feet? Only vaguely, like a dream that’s not very clear.
I have realized slowly how low my expectations for myself are, and how they have been for a long time, yet I’ve always dreamed of more. Haven’t we all?
I know, we just had an Election–are still having it–, those of us in America are on pins and needles. Whoever wins, half of us will feel like hope has gone out the window.
But somehow, life will go on either way, and it may not ruin ours as much as we think it will if it doesn’t go our way.
I don’t feel that wokred up right now, because I’ve realized I can’t conrol what happens. I’m one vote of millions, and evil people may tamper, and try to interfere, or maybe my country will just vote stupidly… People will vote for Biden just because he’s not Trump, and for Trump because he’s not Biden, and we all know that’s why, and we all know we can’t do anything about it.
So, why do we get so angry?
We feel out of control, we can’t control politics (not single handedly) and we can’t control COVID, and we can’t control the weather… so we’re so angry, angry at our neighbors who vote different, live different, and see things differently.
While I most certainly will never say anyone who is innocent who votes in Abortion and other atrocities, neither can I blame one single person for it all. I am leery of anyone who tries to do that.
Just as blaming one person or thing for my own problems turns out to be like quicksand. It’s just a trap.
If I had to pick one way I’ve matured this year, it’s that I think I blame people less than I used to. i’m tired of doing it. And when I don’t need to control things, I don’t need to blame someone when I lose control.
Of course I picked a job that also puts so much out of my control. This last one went smoothly, but their regualr caregiver returned early, nothing they could do, nothing I could do, it just happened. I have no control.
Either I am trying to frustrate myself, or God has led me to paths that teach me to depend on Him, not my own merit. I could be perfect, and it wouldn’t matter in this case, but that’s just it, I’ve always felt I had to be perfect and I always had a man putting that standard on me in my life, several men over the years. Women too.
It’s trail by fire to pursue things I can’t control, and some people have told me frankly it doesn’t make sense to them, but what can I say? This is what I’m good at. What I like doing. Even if I can’t depend on the results.
But maybe it will work out. Maybe I’m right to do what I do. How can I know? I feel there won’t be an end to the searching, but there has to be, right?
I was reading something earlier today, a Light Novel by the author of Naruto (yes, I hate that show, but the LN was actually better, maybe his style is more suited to novels or it could be someone else actually wrote the story) and his character said something interesting that I don’t quite agree with, but I think there’s some truth to it. That being an adult is giving up one thing, and finding another.
Essentially that we give up on our childhood dreams, we lose them, and then we find what we want as adults, eventually.
I don’t think that’s true for everyone. Even the author admits there are exceptions.
And I think that we have a purpose.
But I can agree that finding our Purpose means leeting go of our plans for ourselves to try to make it happen.
I tried to get into a teaching position for a long time when I was younger, and it just wasn’t happening, finally I gave up. Not too long later, I was asked to be a Sunday School teacher at my new church.
It doesn’t work that way everything, sometimes you do need to pursue things, some people are given the gift of being able to do that, but for me, most often, the best things in my life are ones that came to me when I wasn’t expecting it.
Christine Caine has a sermon analogy based on the story of Elisha, when Elijah calls him, and he has to drop everything he’s doing, kiss some things goodbye, and go on his way.
God often does not give us a lot of time to prepare.
And hey, you know hwy? Because we come u with really dumb stuff when we prepare. You’ve probalby had the expericen where something seemed like a good idea till you said it or did it, and then it was horriblly embarrassing or hurtful.
That’s happened to me, or things never play out the way I imagine they will because I have no way to know what will happen.
Like Shikamaru, I once envisionaed a life whereI could do hat I wanted. And like him, it’s not shaped up the wa I thought.
Unlike him, I wouldn’t say I’ve been forced into a career and calling I didn’t want, and don’t feel suits me. I feel I am still transitioning into adulthood and I feel no burden to give up on my dreams and just try to make the world better for my kids. I don’t see anywhere in the bible where it says at a certain age we should just stop living our own lives.
I’ve had people literally 4 years older than me talk to people who are 4 years younger than me, and say they already feel they are preparing for the next generation.
Me? No way. I mean, sure I’ll help, but I’m not done living yet. Catch up to me, kids.
My path of healing has tied into this in a big way, I’ve wuestioned everything about my life this year, I thik I’m not the only one. But I questioned less because of the lockdown than because of personal stuff.
You see, I’ve een fighting a battle with the demons that want to steal my whole life, and I’m walking away form it, however slowly, with the realizaton how rare I am.
It’s not rare to have these probleme,s but it’s are to walk out of them and be thinking “My life is not going to be stolen like this.”
The people who do come to that epiphany still have hard work ahead, but they have hope, and millions of people every year are not living with that hope.
I know that people my age and older feel they are the Walking Dead, it’s all over their fiction works and internet presence. People who are barely making it through life. Losers. People who live from anime episode to episode.
And I’ve been there, there are days I still camp out there.
I don’t claim to have it figured out yet.
But what I can offer someone like that is vision.
AS MLK jr said “I have a Dream.:
I am not just dreaming of my circumstances to change, but that how I feel and think of them will change.
Two days ago, I went for a walk around my street, I’ve had anxiety about doing that since I moved here, my dad didn’t help, worried about being harassed (And I live in a very safe neighborhood), but I walked around and I didn’t feel nervous. I didn’t jump every time I heard a car or saw someone outside. And I thought, with all the stuff I’ve been going through, I just don’t care as much anymore about petty fears.
I’ve also stopped caring as much if people are watching, I dance at church when everyone can see me now, who cares?
You see, I’ve lost enough because of what I couldn’t control, why give up anymore.
Maybe the depression has made me care less about some things, I dress up less often and do less make up, though that’s more because of COVID. But when I am around people, I don’t feel I need to impress them anymore, because it’s pointless. I need authenticity, or relationships to me are useless and just a repeat of my past.
I don’t know if that will go away when my spirits become lighter again and this stuggle ends, and I’ll have the same temptations as many, I somehow doubt it will every be a realll strong pull in my life again.
I’m young, but I’m already learned that it’s better to have a handful of people you can be real with, than thousands you can only be fake with.
Anyway, I think I got off the original point, I guess this post has been mostly about that I learned during 2020, and now it’s almost over.
Looking ahead, I am not going to be brainlessly optimistic and say next year will be easier, I hope my problems will be different problems, but I will have problems.
I doubt all the issues of this year will go away in January, but if I have learned anything else, it’s that change is a process and it’s okay if it takes longer than you thought it would, as long as you see it happening.
Like Shikamaru also, I think I am the same person I was before, just with less baggage, more awareness of the people around me, and a better understanding of sorrow than I had before.
I didn’t stop liking Skillet music, but I started liking Evanescence. If that works as a metaphor for someone, then you get me.
And with that, I’ll wrap this up for now, I hope you got something out of this, and until next time–Natasha.
You know I think I’m finally getting the hang of this new editor, yay!
Well if you were curious, I am better today, have been for a couple days, starting icing my inflamed muscles and taking Prilosec (for acid reflux) and I’ve been eating much better.
And another great thing that happened this week was the Oh Hellos (that band I keep leaving links to at the bottom of my posts) dropped another EP, liking it so far. Musical genius. I am actually listening to them as I write.
Plus a friend I have not seen since the lockdown began finally came to Youth Group again.
So, with some good things happening, what should I write about?
How messed up the world is right now? Yeah…
You know, I try to refrain from ranting about it and getting into politics a whole lot, because that’s not really what I want to write about, and I think too many people complain about the world in their blogs, I won’t start naming names because I still like those bloggers, YouTubers, and others, but…seriously?
Here’s a thought that keeps coming back to me over this year.
Stop. Just… stop.
Why do you bother?
I really don’t get the appeal of being “woke” about stuff, giving the hot take on the events of the world like you are some kind of expert on it. Like you really have such a great grasp of the global climate and the suffering of other people.
Now, I am all about Free Speech, I believe that the right to give our opinions in public is the only protection from tyranny we have.
And I believe that even the idiot’s right to free speech must be protected. after all, if the fools don’t speak, they will not expose their foolishness, as Proverbs assures us they will.
My issue with how it currently is is that the fools are the only ones speaking, most of the time, and people of true wisdom simply stay out of the quarrel.
Like the anime movie title, there’s a Silent Voice in both America, and other countries in political trouble right now. There’s the people who just go quietly about their lives, thinking more wise thoughts, and they won’t let on.
Proverbs also tells us that Wise men will guard their tongues and not speak unnecessarily. Which is not really talking about small talk and humor, as some people have been taught by too strict churches, but talking about saying what is better left unsaid, or saying something at the wrong time.
Proverbs says “a word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in a setting of silver.” Meaning there’s a right time and place to speak, and a right manner.
JAmes says we should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger.
Doesn’t sound like our modern social world does it?
Well, newsflash that the media won’t ever tell you: This is nothing new. People have always been prone to petty arguments, talking over each other, and throwing insults more than reasoning.
It’s hilarious to me when people bemoan how free thought and reason have fallen out of popularity…when were they ever in popularity? There have been a few golden ages in the history of the World where Wisdom was perhaps sought after and respected by many people, but those times were decades at most usually.
When church leaders (not just in the church, it’s all over, but I hear it most there for obvious reasons) say we need to get back to being kind, and need to remember that, and not drift, I want to laugh. They mean well, but I always think, “have you read the bible? This isn’t new. Tell us to be better by all means, but don’t imply that we ever didn’t have these same problems. These are just human problems. They have existed since the fall. They will exist until the new kingdom comes.”
The real wake up call anyone reading this needs, if they haven’t had it already, is to realize this is not something that happened because humans have changed, but because they haven’t and won’t.
This is not unusual.
2020 as a whole has been a weird year, to be sure, but the problems it exposed in our culture are not really Racism, Intolerance, or radicalism to unhealthy amounts on both sides of our political spectrum. It was not arrogance, pride, or pettiness.
Oh no, if you didn’t already know all that existed, boy were you either stupid or sheltered way more than a homeschooler ever is. Read a book, seriously, I’ve known about this stuff since I was a kid, just in varying forms.
But I’m sure you did know. I don’t care if you don’t even live in the USA, it’s the same everywhere. You cold live in a remote African village, or in rural China, (though I doubt you’d be reading this if you did) and you could tell me the same crap happens there as I’m describing, it’s just undocumented.
You know what 2020 really revealed to me, I knew it already, but I never saw it so clearly before:
Just how Self-Aggrandizing, Whiny, and Anxiety obsessed my country is.
And it’s not just the young people, though it scares me how prevalent it is for them, at least in my state.
But, oh my gosh, have we gotten delusional.
I hear people say constantly that the world has never been through this kind of thing, the country has never been through this kind of thing, and we are in something new.
I mean, seriously? None of the other crisises in history came close to this one? This one that was made much better by having tech we could connect with each other through, and keep our businesses running with, and our churches. For a national or global crisis, this has been remarkably cushy, the psychological effects are far worse than the materiel ones for most of us who have not lost someone to the virus, or lost our jobs, but even those of us who did suffer that had more resources than the average Crisis victim in any past tragedy would have.
I got handouts I didn’t even ask for from my school, lots of people have.
And the political corruption line? Really. That’s been every single election since Washington stepped down and Reagan served his 2nd term.
I ask you Americans who read this, what do you think we deserve, anyway?
If you are on the Left, what makes you think we are so entitled to social justice?
Your side promotes murdering innocent children, pushing ideologies in schools that many parents don’t like, and pushing secularism and Evolution, a worldview that has absolutely not a shred of evidence.
If you are on the Right, why are you blaming the Left for ruining this country?
Who has sat back and done nothing, for decades? Or at most, protested and petitioned in weak ways, but not gone to the real battleground and taken back our schools and counties, and gotten social media savvy, and tried to understand what kids are up against now, instead of blaming them fro being brainwashed when no one tried to stop it.
I mean, I’ll give the Left this, they make themselves heard, they have popular platforms, they know how to appeal to kids.
The Right often to me does not even try to understand what we like, they just tell us what we should like. In my personal experience, it’s gotta be old music, old fashions, old ways of doing things. And anyone who doesn’t like that is just a snowflake wimp.
So much for being the trendsetters.
No, though I support Conservative ideology, the actual actions of Conservative often fail to impress me. There’s some very cool ones out there, but many just sit on their duffs and complain and say it’s all wrong, and do nothing whatsoever that will ever be remotely useful in the long run.
So, I ask, what ecactly do you expect?
You can call this years election a joke, but this is exactly what you asked for, and you know how?
Because you fall for the click-bait, you start the arguments, you rail at people who don’t agree with you.
You demonize the other side, and you worship any leader who echoes your opinions.
But what’s worse than all that, is you actually have the audacity to feel sorry for yourself. To feel you’ve already lost, and that your life will be forever ruined by forces you cannot control.
And that absolutely can and has happened, in the past, but you take it on before it’s actually set in stone, and live your life afraid of the future, and what the opposing side will do to you.
(I don’t mean all this as necessarily someone who is reading this does that, though it’s possible, I mean to the grander audience of people who complain in general)
Now, it may be no one knows what to do. But why not just admit that and start praying? Why must me insist on being so arrogant that we will deny just how clueless we really are, and refuse to seek wisdom, to study how it was done in the past, and how real changes were actually made.
I am so sick of the Self Pity. How dare we feel sorry for ourselves when we have the most freedom to control our fate, and people would kill for that in oppressed countries. And they must look at us in amazement at how scared we are.
Believe me, I get scared by the corruption too, but I have not yet been convinced that I am helpless. There are measures still open to me, and at the very least, if I can change nothing, I can at least choose not to compromise.
We asked for this. We really did. And we didn’t try to stop it. Why? Because we decided we liked anger, we liked hatred, we liked ignorance.
And I am not talking about racism or bigotry as the media defines it, I mean the pure corruption in this country that people can’t stop whining about, just as if they didn’t all contribute to it.
It’s like the Hunger Games, if nobody watched it, this gruesome, sick, charade couldn’t keep going.
So why do we watch it?
Part of the point of that saga is not that people will necessarily force kids to fight for food in a post apocalyptic future, it’s that people will accept evil that they do not have to accept, if it’s entertaining. That people will be fooled into thinking they can do nothing about it, if they are shown something as normal, and as supported by rich, privileged higher ups. Who in turn think they can do nothing, because people pay them for this.
That’s why things are this way this year.
And all the whining about how awful it is is not going to change a thing, that’s part of the problem. You do realize that the facade literally depends on us complaining about it instead of actually trying to improve our own lives.
I’ll tell you, if we all tried to improve our own lives alone, we’d have changed this country years ago, let alone if we tried to help out others.
That’s what Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of happiness means, guys. The freedom to pursue the best life for yourself possible, whatever the confines of your situation are. People cam to America with nothing and became rich, not because they had “privileges” but because they believed they could change their situation.
Despite many bad legal decisions in the last few decades, that is still true and has not yet quite disappeared, though many foolish people are trying to remove it.
I don’t have a plan to fix this country, nor do I necessarily think it will be fixed, because I am much more concerned with individuals and how they think, and feel.
I am just using politics as an example because it’s an obvious one, but what I’m saying applies to all areas of life.
Just stop. Stop commenting on everything. Stop complaining about everything.
Stop talking about how corrupt our leaders are, you’re the one who even watches the news to get told who to vote for, why are you surprised when they make a sensation, that’s what you asked for, because you like feeling stirred up (nobody who doesn’t like that watches the news, trust me.)
Guess what, there are other candidates who dion’t get coverage at all, do you bother looking into them?
Stop trying to sound smart.
Stop trying to diagnose the problem.
Stop thinking that talking about it is a solution.
Like, raising awareness, what is the point of raising awareness? It stops nothing. It only intimates people who might actually do the right thing if it wasn’t shoved in their faces how terrible they are for not doing it.
But, hey, no one has to listen to me. I know that. I know that I am talking to myself here as much as anyone. But this is the best advice I could give myself. Like Portia and Alice, I don’t always follow it, easy to say, not easy to do.
But even so, I am learning.
The real reason the Bible advises us not to get too concerned with world events is because Jesus knew just how much of a trap it is, trying to fix the world that cannot be fixed, and getting sucked into the void of trying to find the perfect solution that doesn’t exist.
Because Jesus is and always will be the only Perfect Solution to anything and everything. And he cannot be controlled by us and our efforts, though he may use them.
I think, in the end, many people my age wouldn’t even argue with me that there is no real answer in this world, they just lack the hope that there is a better world with the answer that we can be a part of.
Which saddens me. The only real way to prevent despair is to hope in something that cannot be taken away by the world’s circumstances.
Christians get flack for focusing on what is unseen, and what is often vague and hard to understand, on a distant Heavenly future instead of solving the present problems.
But remember Christianity was founded under a wold dominion, a time when a human solution to the problem seemed impossible. That was why it was so clear why Heaven had to be the answer.
Because God’s kingdom must be untouchable by man’s rules or ways, or it is weak and empty, just like our own. So it can’t be an earthly kingdom. No earthly kingdom is permanent, if you set your hope in that, you might as well despair now.
So, to wrap this up, my final thought it that I will hate to see my world collapses around me, and I hope it doesn’t for a very long time, but I now it will, sooner or later, and when it happens, I want to find the rock under my feet was always something that the world couldn’t take away from me, because it wasn’t o f the world to begin with.
And I encourage people to think about that, as this year draws to a close. You lost a lot more than you expected, but what did you find unshakable? If there was nothing, then maybe you built your life on the wrong thing to begin with.
drybonestruth 