Life owes you nothing. It doesn’t owe you a favor for the ill-fit parents you were given or the illness you received. It won’t return the diamond you lost and definitely not the man who gave it to you in the first place. It won’t hand over a mother you always dreamed of having or the partner you truly deserved. It won’t deliver a child that lovingly adores you and sleeps through the night, listens to everything you say, and thanks you. Repeatedly.
You won’t get the job of your dreams without struggling to get there or at least without realizing you have a dream worthy of pursuing in the first place. And just because you have a learning disability or a speech impediment or chronic disease does not mean kindness and compassion are expected for the hard journey you’ve had to endure. Just because you wear color on your skin or live a lifestyle that’s not considered mainstream, doesn’t mean others will hold the door for you in life or that they will understand how much harder it is for you to live in the world than it is for them.
It’s unfair, isn’t it?
And worse, no grown-up ever told you the truth, that magic is in all the things not formulated for money. That in the swell of the greatest wave grows your imagination, your belief in all the unseen things. That life isn’t a parent or a mentor. It’s not a movie or a fairytale. That sometimes bad things happen to good people. That life isn’t meant to hand you everything you deserve or dream of.
That some of the best writers died before they were given the validation they thirsted for.
That cruelness sometimes wins. That good, innocent people who do benevolent things die before we are ready. Are we ever ready?
The reason why life isn’t hell, however, is that life gives us the gift of grace. And within it, the control and freedom to create beauty from the ugly, that truth can truly set us free, and that there is evidence of miraculous feats created by remarkably resilient people; some who were born out of the most troubled lives. That forgiveness can sweep over the darkest days and recreate them into love overflowing.
That a single life even one with pain, suffering and unbearable heartache can bear the fruits of eternal hope. That the potential of what can pour forth from the dirt-filled past is the garden of insight, global peace, and god-like compassion.
That is worth it. For the sacrifices of the lost, the words of writers who left a legacy, the pain of a childhood, bears the gift.