A Bittersweet Life

I've been thinking a lot lately about the idea of bittersweet.  As you all know, Shauna Niequist just released her book, Bittersweet.  Excellent is an understatement.  But the book has really taken my world and flipped it a little.  This passage from her books sums up why:

"The idea of bittersweet is changing the way I live, unraveling and re-weaving the way I understand life.  Bittersweet is the idea that in all things there is both something broken and something beautiful, that there is a sliver of lightness on even the darkest of nights, a shadow of hope in every heartbreak, and that rejoicing is no less rich when it contains a splinter of sadness.

Bittersweet is the practice of believing that we really do need both the bitter and the sweet, and that a life of nothing but sweetness rots your teeth and your soul.  Bitter is what makes us strong, what forces us to push through, what helps us earn the lines on our faces and the calluses on our hands.  Sweet is nice enough, but bittersweet is beautiful, nuanced, full of depth and complexity.  Bittersweet is courageous, gutsy, earthy."

As I have read, reread, and read again through this book I can't help but see how true these words are.  When I look at my life, the things that brought me the most happiness came out of bittersweet circumstances.  Because it was through growth that life came.  It was the practice of sucking it up and moving forward on rough days that I realized my strength.  Shauna is right, a life of sweetness rots your soul.  The bitter can be so hard and cut right through you on dark days, but if you can find it in yourself to move forward the satisfaction is priceless, and the reward that much sweeter.

I'm okay with still learning.  I'm okay with not knowing all the answers.  I feel like so many people just want to have it figured out.  I'm not there.  I'm not one of them.  I choose to take my life by each day.  Sucking every last bit of goodness that I can out of it.  On bad days when I'm making my list of 5 things that I'm thankful for I am able to sit back and remind myself that even on rough days good things happen.  But on those sweet days when I could make a list of 15 things that I'm thankful for, I sit back and smile with a heart so full.  And there's the payoff of a sweet full life.

Wherever you are in your life right now take a moment to appreciate that place.  Even if you think that where you are is dark and lonely.  I promise you, you're not alone.  Hang on.  Keep going.  You're one day closer to getting out of the cave you feel you're stuck in.  And if you're in a place right now where life is sweet take a moment to reflect and appreciate this exact moment.  Because there will come a day when hard stuff comes at you--it's life, but remember where you are now and how full that place can be.

"So this is the work I'm doing now, and the work I invite you into: when life is sweet, say thank you and celebrate.  And when life is bitter, say thank you and grow."