In Praise of Falling Apart. {Stomping Your Feet, Crying on the Floor & Having A Miserable Damn Year.}

If you know me, you know this last year has been rough. The 365 days in between the summers of 2010 and 2011 were chalk full of dead ends, heartbreak and dragons in need of slaying. It was long and it was hard, but it is over.

As I look back on what can only be described as kathleen and the terrible, horrible, no good, rotten, very bad year, I realize how necessary it is to have these dark times. Without them, how would we know just what we are made of? How would we know to relish in the delight of the good times? And, more than that, how would we become the people we are meant to be?

A very wise person said to me earlier this year, "This is the time you'll look back on and think, 'I climbed up from that.' " And, friends, she was right. I did climb up from that.

In this culture, we tell people to get over it. To quit crying and move on. To pull yourself up by your bootstraps. (Or as my mother would say, "Pull your socks up.") Well, guess what? I'm here to tell you not to get over it, but to get under it. Roll around in your sorrow and your hurt and your struggles. It won't last forever, I promise. Cry and stomp your feet and pull the covers up over your head. Give yourself the time and the attention the world tries to refuse you. You're worth it. And, one day, maybe even a year from now, you'll feel better. In fact, you'll be glad you fell apart in order to have the opportunity to build again.

And right now is all about rebuilding. Rebuilding a beautiful life on the rubble of all the inevitable hard times you survived.