Days Like This

It is a beautiful summer day. The sun is streaming through my windows, and I can hear the voices of children playing outside. It’s a perfect day for a day trip, a barbeque, the beach or swimming. It’s a perfect day for an adventure with the people you love, or to take a long walk outside and feel the sun on your face.

I am working. Like so many other picturesque days when others are relishing the great outdoors, I am indoors alone. It is not because I have urgent work that needs to be done today; it is because my children are with their father, I’m currently in-between boyfriends, and my friends are busy with their spouses and children. I’m lonely and bored, so I work to distract myself from the fact that it’s a magnificent day, and I don’t have anyone to spend it with.

This morning, I was angry. I looked to the heavens and asked why. Why me? Why didn’t I get the life and the partner that I wanted? Why do I so often find myself in this position? A beautiful day, no obligations, the perfect day for fun, but I have no one to have fun with. I let myself wallow in self-pity for a while, and then I remembered: it was a day like this when I wrote a poem about missing my children. It was a day like this when I submitted that poem to a publisher, and they decided to make it into a children’s book.

It was a day like this that I created a website that hosted a blog. It was a day like this when I wrote a blog post that moved people to tears and resulted in emails and conversations about vulnerability, honesty, and healing.

It was a day like this when I sent an email to the Cotsen Children’s Library, which led to a fantastic book event and a soulmate friendship. It was a day like this when I mailed a copy of my book to an independent bookstore in Connecticut, who emailed me a week later asking for more books because they fell in love with it, and they anticipate selling many copies.

It was a day like this when I sent an email to Bethany Beach Books asking if they might consider selling my book or hosting an event for me. They said yes to both, and that event was incredible and turned into a vacation at the beach with my kids, the memory of which I will always cherish.

Days like this hurt.

Days like this are hard.

Days like this lead me to events, people, and opportunities that I might otherwise never have known.

Days like this lead me to write things that help me heal.

Days like this lead me to write things that help others heal.

Days like this lead me to post things that help me make connections with people all over the world.

What if the loneliness I kept asking God to take away was exactly the catalyst that I needed for change?

What if the pain is what drove me to find my purpose?

What if I could only hear God when everyone else was silent?

What if I had someone to go on a day trip with that day and I never wrote that book that changed my life?

What if I had someone to go to the beach with that day and I never wrote that blog post that changed someone else’s life?

What if I was so busy with my current friends that I never met the new friends God wanted to introduce me to?

I don’t believe that I have to be sad for God to use me, but I do believe that He can take pain and turn it into purpose.

I do believe that I can hear Him most clearly in the silence.

I do believe that sometimes boredom or loneliness can drive us to create things that can change our lives, and inspire others.

I do believe that despite the challenges, I want to have more days like this.

The artist is a strange being. I think it’s safe to say that a real artist is conscious of having a personal singularity that is partly a blessing and partly a curse. An artist enjoys and suffers from isolation. As solitude, isolation can nurture. It can also destroy. – Peter Schjeldahl