When we were in high school – while we were cramming for Calculus, memorizing the succession of empires and kings and wars in Europe, listening to classical music and defying sleep fog, planning secret dates over the weekend – the only heartaches we knew were flunking our exams, being dumped by a boyfriend, not being asked to someone’s prom, and assortments of life crises like that.
I don’t think any of us ever thought we’d face more heart-wrenching problems than these.
Dealing with our insecurities in high school was probably the most harrowing thing we had to endure on a daily basis, without even knowing it. But survive we did. Some – gracefully, beautifully. While most of us were awkward, abrasive and combative, tentative or timid, depending on how we were raised at home.
I remember a classmate who survived four years of high school by just being quiet. Very, very quiet. But when she ventured out into this huge university for college, she bloomed.
She just bloomed – and became unstoppably lovely, accomplished.
Looking back, I guess our huge heartbreaks started when we got married.
One by one, most of us got married. Then one by one, we were blindsided, mowed down, crushed, dismayed and decimated by marital distress.
Some of us caved in and made things worse by doing drugs or drinking, spending and buying compulsively…cultivating addictions. Or having revenge affairs. Or making bad investments while emotionally unstable. Some of us escaped into careers that consumed our lives. Some of us had husbands who got very sick, or painfully wayward, or suffered severe financial losses. Some of us had children who saw our anguish, and were damaged by our unhappy marriages.
Some of us endured quietly, patiently, calmly – and waited out the storm.
We were never quite the same afterwards. But we survived. We made it. Now that we’re 70, we can look back and say we made it. But sadly, some of us didn’t.
I don’t really know if all of us got over our childhood insecurities; if we managed to dislodge the chips on our shoulders while leaping from decade to decade.
But I guess it’s safe to say that we’ve mellowed down, somewhat. And now, in our senior years, the thing that some of us still have to deal with are what I call “residual insecurities” disguised as cynicism, self-sabotage, unforgiveness, callousness, bitterness – all in relation to the heartaches we didn’t foresee, and have not yet resolved.
Those of us who stayed single were spared from the countless complexities of marriage, raising kids, having careers or businesses while running our homes, wearing other hats.
But I’m sure our singles had their own share of unforeseen heartaches, too. And most singles have had to bear it alone. I don’t know if that’s better or worse. But married or single, I’ve always thought that in high school, we were primarily (and unintentionally) raised to be in careers, not marriages.
We were trained to be independent thinkers, to be articulate about our thoughts and opinions, to ask questions when we wanted issues clarified, to stand our ground when we believed in something.
This was, alas, a double-edged sword. And we discovered that only when we were already out there in the real world. Because not everyone is comfortable with women who have a tendency to speak up when they feel things aren’t right. Or when they’re being trampled upon, or when someone they care about is being mistreated.
All things considered, I’ve always been grateful for the friends, the classmates, I grew up with. We’ve handled our heartaches in different ways, but through it all, I appreciate the genuine compassion I’ve seen in most of them. There has been so much more compassion than malicious talk or gossip.
I also know that in the small groups of close friends among us, there has been REAL involvement and REAL help, quietly and quickly given, in times of need.
We may have been clueless about the heartaches we were going to face down the road – and what those heartaches were going to do to us. But at the end of the day, most of us have stayed firm in our belief that Jesus was going to see us through.
That we didn’t have be “good enough” for Him to love us. Because, really, no one is good enough.
Now we know that in all those unforeseen heartaches, Jesus was already there, walking ahead of us, waiting to see us through. That’s why we made it.
Thank you, Jesus.
