In a debacle year, just gratitude for ‘debacle day’ in the past

2016 was about the worst year of my life, yet 2008 wasn’t much better, and yet as I cast my mind back — poring through old journals — I notice something very cool.  I linger not over the difficulties back then, but my mind searches for the emotional depths of the time, and conveniently they’re gone.

All I have is my notes.  But oh how low those times were, learning to be married again, learning to parent my daughters within marriage, learning to be a manager, learning to carve out peace in my own home.  It was hard for our whole household, but we were helped by our counsellor at the time, even if a lot of the work needed to be done was up to me.

I had a strange ally in those times; my father-in-law, who had an incredible objectivity when I was at crisis point.  My mother was the key influence in my daughters’ lives.  And ‘debacle day’ (April 2, 2008) was crisis at full tilt.

Like many days that end up as debacles, my day started out well.  The fact it has a red flag attached to it signifies something significant for all the wrong reasons.  Note how many red flags are attached to the pages of the journal for that year.  A lot.

‘Mental fog’ appears to be the culprit as I read these pages; a mental tiredness that caused me to view life through the lens of dread.  When all is complaint, especially when that complaint begins to reveal itself in quizzical looks and social silences of crickets, something’s gone awry.

What I notice most as I look back on this kind of day is just how many of these kinds of days I’ve had over the history of my adult life.  There have been dozens upon dozens, perhaps on average, one or two per month.  I’ve lived about 400 adult months — that’s actually hundreds of very poor days.  And yet, my life has not been condemned for them; only God truly knows the totality of my lack of effectiveness.  And my wife?  She loves me despite my ups and downs.  But to keep it in context, this was a particularly trying year.

None of us are condemned for struggling, so long as we’re doing our best to plan our way to recovery.  And we do recover if we’ve got the insight of awareness to make good of what has turned out poorly.

There is always tomorrow and it’s never too late to start all over again.  No matter how many times we fail, there is always a future moment when to succeed is the opportunity.  In days like now, I still have low days; we still have low days, if we’re honest.

What will we learn?  What will we do with our learning?  How can we be better for our loved ones and for all those who rely on us?  These are penetrating questions that beg to be answered.

Whatever this season looks or feels like, in years to come we’ll have a deeper appreciation mainly of our courage simply to wade through challenging days a day at a time.  Those years will, unfortunately, come all too soon, which reminds us to practice presence in the present.

What I notice most of all in this diary entry is an honest willingness to do better.  Not do more, but do better.  When doing better is about being better for others, we’re bound to succeed more than we fail.