I’ll Trade You

I will say you can have your silver linings. Keep them. Save them for when you need them and then see how wonderful they don’t feel. 

Understand what the price of one really is. Yes, I have learned to be grateful for the small, everyday mercies. And I really am, on most days. Yes, I know others have it much worse. Yes, maybe I am stronger, wiser, kinder. But actually I won’t ever know, will I?  Because there isn’t another me to compare it to. Yes, character, courage, all those things. But what if I would have been okay–and I really think I would have been–had I been left alone without all these opportunities to offer forgiveness, and courage and the brave smile, to show love to those who had hurt me and others, not to have borne witness to how cruel people can be to one another. Especially to children. 

I’m not so much angry, really, as tired of everyone thinking they have a silver lining to offer. We don’t hold them for others, and the price is significant. Like resilience, silver linings come after pain. And often a lot of it. Decisions–with no clear path–just whatever the gamble one is willing to take. With another’s life. And then what?

So, yes. I’ll trade you this silver lining. Or that one. For the innocence you still have about this world, without the knowledge and all the gifts brought by those silver linings. Trade it for the day before I knew this path of silver linings was now the journey, the life called mine, and there was no turning back.

deb y felio
Boulder, Colorado