“Chin up,” I tell the kids when I’m rinsing their hair at bath time. This allows the suds and water to roll marvelously around their ears and down their backs.

Is it really just as simple with the burdens of adulthood? “When you walk through a storm, hold your head up high and don’t be afraid of the dark.” Singing this song has always given me chills. But the rinsing analogy is offering a new attraction to the song’s wisdom.

I hurt my knee on May 20, 2011. Considering the day was forecast to be our last, I guess I “landed” pretty well. The diagnosis following a month of denial: torn ACL. What troubles me most is that this news triggered my inner movie reel: deaths, abuse, distrust, deaths, illness, food allergies, house mold, contractor abandonment, double job loss, financial tightropes, mistrust, injury paired with the potential financial distress of surgery…

Can you tell me how to position myself to allow these life artifacts to roll away? How to hold my head up high above them to see them as building blocks rather than an avalanche?

Advertisement