Insights in a tent, in the rain

Our family went camping last weekend with some dear friends. It was raining our first night, so we did the best we could to find the fun and not think about how cold and uncomfortable we were. While playing a game called Loaded Questions, we all had to answer the question, “What feels like it takes forever, and never turns out quite the way you would hope?”

The answer of a fellow camper caught my attention. He said, “summer.”

Inwardly, my heart said yes. The kind of yes that feels like, “You too? I’m not alone?” It also felt like a sigh with slumped shoulders. Summer should be fun. I hate that my experience of summer feels like that.

Each May, I bump into this reality. When I go into Target and see beach towels and coolers, and I’m thinking about needing to finish admin work. When my husband the teacher and our two kids are deciding whether they should go to the lake tomorrow or on a hike. I try to do all the things to buffer my disappointment: to practice gratitude for the fun weekend we just had, to think about our short family trip coming up. Those things aren’t bad. Gratitude CAN hold power to right the ship. We ARE privileged- there are many in the world who are suffering far more than our family.

But still, I couldn’t quite stave off disappointment.

Which brings me to what I wanted to write about, and what struck me so deeply as we sat under the tent in the rain.

Grief.

When most of us hear grief, we think of losing someone to death or a big move to another state or country. We don’t think about the thousands of paper cuts we accumulate over the days and weeks of our lives. Things like not getting to connect with our partner in the ways we would hope. Our kid deciding to quit football when we love the game. Wishing you could buy a house, but never being able to get ahead financially. Then there are the bigger ones: health challenges. Divorce, or the end of a relationship. Loved ones with addiction. Even graduation and marriage involve grief!

What I learned on that camping trip is that noticing grief, tending to it rather than ignoring it, is the path forward. M. Scott Peck tells us that “mental health is an ongoing process of dedication to reality at all costs.” So in the moment when I realized that summer as a grownup isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be, wisdom required me to notice that. Maybe to let tears come later when I was picking up wet muddy trash that didn’t make it into our camp trash bag.

Something shifted in me when my friend named his disappointment. Clarity came. I understood that summer is hard for another working parent other than me. My eyes glisten with sadness even as I write this now. Even though summertime IS about camping, watermelon, and trips to the mountains; it’s also about heat, finding house sitters, and financing all the fun we’re having. Which is sometimes disappointing and hard. I was open to feeling the disappointment.

So my suggestion to you? Pay attention. Notice what stirs your heart. Notice what feels tricky, sad, or makes you mad. Stay curious about that. And when you discover something that feels tender, follow that thread. Give yourself permission and a place to notice, name, and feel what’s going on for you. See if you can show compassion to the part of your heart that grieves, and then see what happens.

If this resonates, check back in with me. I’ll be writing more on grief in the weeks to come. Maybe even offering an event in Northern Colorado to help you process and work through all kinds of different losses.

Or, if this awakened a desire for connection and healing, please reach out. I’d be honored to sit with you and take a closer look at your story and create space for you to metabolize your losses and work them through. Shoot me an email at kim@kimsmithcounseling and let’s talk.

**So much of what I’ve learned about this has been from Francis Weller’s book The Wild Edge of Sorrow, and from Adam Young’s thoughtful expansion of Weller’s work. Feel free to check out Adam’s podcast if you want a deeper dive on this topic:

https://adamyoungcounseling.com/how-to-heal-from-sorrow-and-grief-part-1/